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Re: C# is not Dylan (was: Re: C# : The new language from M$)
David Bakhash <cadet@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>
> Syntax is _extremely_ important to many programmers because there
> are many times when several languages are "equivalent" in many
> respects, and so in the end it comes down to which one's syntax one
> is most comfortable with.
I don't want to disparage your (or anyone else's) taste, but
for me, syntax rarely matters except when it is designed to maximize
confusion. (Eg: Perl and Python -- the two languages have nearly
identical semantics, but Perl is awk on PCP and Python isn't, so
I use Python for sysadminy things.)
But Dylan and Lisp are both clean enough; I can judge between the two
based on their feature sets. I chose Dylan, but there are features
that you might need (such as the MOP) that Dylan (deliberately)
doesn't have.
> Since you have lots of experience with both languages, would you
> agree that the CL syntax is more expressive? more malleable? More
> uniform? I would, but if you feel otherwise, I'd like to know why.
Actually, I'd say that Dylan is simpler and more uniform than Common
Lisp. There are single features of CL (such as LOOP and the FORMAT
sublanguage) that are nearly as complex as all of Dylan.
But Common Lisp has a set of powerful features Dylan doesn't. Reader
macros, compiler macros, and the ability to do computation at macro
expansion time. Dylan's macros are very close to Scheme's; they are a
hygienic pattern-expansion mechanism (plus a feature to deliberately
break hygiene).
Since I do need a comprehensive object system but don't usually need
the MOP, make frequent use of higher-order functions, and naturally
tend to write only the sorts of macros easily written with a hygienic
system, I prefer Dylan.
Neel
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