Re: Var-free programming (slightly off-topic)

[Dan Weinreb <address@hidden>]

   Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2001 11:52:29 -0500 (EST)
   From: Shriram Krishnamurthi <sk@cs.brown.edu>

   Lightweight languages rule.

So, the big question that didn't actually get addressed at the LL
conference: what is the criterion (or what are the criteria) for
distinguishing between a "lightweight" language and other kinds of
languages?

The one thing that's clear is that lightweight languages are good and
non-lightweight languages are bad.  Maybe that's the definition? :-)

It's not clear to me that "having a read-eval-print loop" has
something to do with the "weight" of a language.  Or that having
lexical scoping is a "weight" thing.  I'm also not sure whether
"weight" is more a property of the language definition in the abstract
as opposed to a property of a particular implementation.