Re: Five Years After

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

"Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote in message 
news:p4a2ah$58s$1@gioia.aioe.org...
> On 24/01/2018 14:16, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
...
>> So the only thing they could do is keep making the computer languages
>> more and more complicated.
>
> Nothing happens without scientific efforts towards new concepts of 
> language design. There was no any advance for more than 30 years. The 
> compiler market was demolished long ago, so there is no commercial 
> interest in any research.
>
> Languages are designed either by hobbyists or by monopolists for purposes 
> of customer lock and stiffening competition. They recycle old ideas good 
> and bad all the same, just like fashion designers do their collections.

This is one the best descriptions of modern language design that I've heard! 
Part of the problem is that few of these so called language designers have 
much exposure to many languages, so one doesn't really even know what does 
and does not work. And some features (exception contracts come to mind) are 
declared bad as much because of bad designs which inevitably lead to bad 
outcomes.

Ada is not immune to this, unfortunately. There is always pressure to add 
some pet feature from some other favorite language, and I have to hope that 
ultimately we will resist adding too much of that sort of stuff.

                                 Randy.