Re: A plea for a new old language

[Dan Sugalski <address@hidden>]

At 4:32 PM -0400 5/7/03, Shriram Krishnamurthi wrote:
>There's a confusion in this discussion that Michael Vanier has
>(inadvertently?) highlighted.
>
>My understanding was that Dan Sugalski was planning to use CPS in the
>*implementation* of Parrot.

Yes.

>I was questioning why Dan would need to use CPS in implementing
>Parrot, or at any rate what that has to do with continuations in
>source languages.  That question still stands.

I want to use CPS in the implementation of parrot as I find that, 
conceptually at least, it solves a lot of messy problems for me. Or, 
rather, avoids a lot of required messy code emission form compilers.

I want continuations in *source* languages because I want a pool of 
developers comfortable with continuations. Making a required feature 
of parrot something that people are profoundly uncomfortable with 
isn't a good way to enlarge that pool.

So, simply:

1) I want to use CPS
2) To use CPS, I need developers who are OK with continuations
3) To get developers OK with continuations, they need experience with 
continuations
4) To get them experience with continuations, they need to use a 
language that they're comfortable with that also has continuations
5) Thus, I'd like a *reasonably popular* language in the common style 
(procedural and/or OO, like it or not) to get continuations added

Whether or not you *always* need continuations to have an 
implementation that uses CPS is irrelevant, as you at least 
*sometimes* need them, and thus familiarity with them is necessary.
-- 
                                         Dan

--------------------------------------"it's like this"-------------------
Dan Sugalski                          even samurai
dan@sidhe.org                         have teddy bears and even
                                       teddy bears get drunk