RE: FW: book

[Greg Wilson <address@hidden>]

Hi, Matthias; thanks for your mail.

> the first edition had nothing on types, safety, and gc...
> The authors have recognized these shortcomings and address 
> some of them in the second edition.

Thank you for pointing that out; I don't have my copy handy,
but I believe it is the 1st ed.

> As for couching these results in terms of different syntaxes, 
> I suggest we agree to disagree that this is a topic of importance. 

1. It's not simply a matter of syntax.  Python, for example, has
   until recently had a strict three-level namespace, while Perl
   has its odd globs.  Similarly, Icon's pervasive generators hield
   an evaluation model that is very different from that of Scheme,
   Python, Java, etc.

2. I don't have my Bartlett's handy, but someone once said, "It
   is not enough to preach---one must be heard."  I think that a
   book couched only in Lisp-like syntax is less likely to be read
   by the average programmer than one which uses other notations.
   Since the point of writing a book is to have people read it, I
   suggest that this *is* a topic of some importance for would-be
   authors...

> Interfacing to legacy systems is a topic that has only come 
> up some five years ago. 

If you're speaking of "impractical, academic LLs" (using the
distinction in your original post), then I don't know enough to
comment.  I do think that easy integration with C was an explicit
design goal for the very first version of Python --- Jeremy, can
you comment?

> The reason I used the word "appearances" is that personally I 
> find nothing less satisfying than integrating an existing program
> into one of my scripts via strings or char streams (and yes, I do
> that sometimes). 

I guess we have to agree to disagree once again --- I find
rewriting existing code even less satisfying than that :-).

Thanks,
Greg


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