Re: Language Challenge 2000 - Update

[dvdeug@x8b4e53cd.dhcp.okstate.edu (David Starner)]

On Thu, 3 Feb 2000 08:22:04 -0800, Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> wrote:
>On 3 Feb 2000, David Starner wrote:
>> One interesting language contest, though, is the International Functional 
>> Programming Contest. The main values for the last one were correctness,
>> and rapid development with a touch of speed. I think Ada would be a poor
>> language for it though, as the winners (or just those who were correct)
>> all ran nice high level languages. (All the C entries failed to be
>> correct, IIRC.)
>
>Unless I misread the results, some C and C++ teams (as well as Perl and
>Python teams) were correct, they just weren't in the top six. 

Sorry - two out of the nine C teams were correct. It was the two Perl
teams that got sunk. 

>> I didn't want to worry about not having garbage collecting 
>> or hetrogenous lists, so I went with Icon.
>
>If you had a library, you could have heterogeneous lists and more in 
>Ada. 
You'd have to derive every thing from the same base tagged type, or
have a library with some serious C level pointer evil. Alternately,
I could set up variant records.

>For GC, I suppose you'd have to use AppletMagic. 
Or wrap the Boehm-Weiser GC library.

>Another choice might be to use a language with GC, built in lists, a
>powerful module system with signatures, strong static typing (which Icon
>lacks),

Of course, I would have found strong static typing in my way with those
hetrogenous lists.

>higher order functions, and an implementation with a rich tool set 
>for constructing compilers. I wonder if there is such a beast? ;-)
Hmm? ML, I guess. The compiler part was only applicable to last year,
though. It's a Scheme-style syntax - it's not a big deal to parse.

>> I would be deeply impressed
>> with anyone who got Ada into the victory circle.
>
>I think its tougher to write code quickly in Ada or C++ than in a good FP, 
>like OCaml, and these contests favor speed of writing.
Yep. Ada, for all its good points, is not a language designed for quick
hacking.

-- 
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
Only a nerd would worry about wrong parentheses with
square brackets. But that's what mathematicians are.
   -- Dr. Burchard, math professor at OSU