Re: what is the problem?

[Paul Graham <address@hidden>]

I think this is an interesting exercise, but I would alter
a few of them:

 Lisp: Turing Machines are an awkward way to describe computation.

 Pascal: Algol doesn't have enough data types.

 Scheme: MacLisp is a kludge.

 Python: Lisp syntax is scary and CL and Scheme have no libraries.

 Java: C++ is a kludge. |  Microsoft is going to crush us.

Does anyone have suggestions for Smalltalk, Ruby, Haskell, ML...?


--- "KELLEHER,KEVIN (Non-HP-Roseville,ex1)" <kevin_kelleher@non.hp.com>
wrote:
> One could look at each language as an attempt to solve a particular
> problem.
> I've listed a few below, and probably got some wrong.  It would not
> be hard
> to
> make a satirical version as well (see each language as an attempt to
> *create*
> a particular problem).
> 
> C:
> 	Assembly language is too hard; we need something on a higher level.
> 
> C++:
> 	C is not object oriented.
> 
> Java:
> 	C/C++ have complicated and dangerous elements, and their executibles
> 	aren't portable.
> 
> Lua:
> 	An embedded language should be as small as possible.
> 
> Prolog:
> 	There should be a way to program logical relations.
> 
> Lisp:
> 	We could make a language out of McCarthy's notes.
> 
> Scheme:
> 	Lisp is too big and too complicated.  We need something purer.
> 
> Perl:
> 	Shell scripts/awk/sed are inadequate.
> 
> PHP:
> 	There should be a language made *for* web programming.
> 
> Python:
> 	Perl could be a hell of a lot simpler.
> 
> Tcl:
> 	There are pieces in various languages that need to work together.
> 	We need some kind of glue that will do that.
> 
> Tk:
> 	We need an easy/portable way to build GUIs.
> 
> 
> Kevin Kelleher


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