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

[Vladimir G Ivanovic <address@hidden>]

"DW" == Dan Weinreb <dlw@exceloncorp.com> writes:

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

  DW>    Lightweight languages rule.

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

Good question!

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

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

For example, the K&R reference manual for C [1] is 40 pages long. Does
that make (K&R) C "lightweight"?

--- Vladimir

Vladimir G. Ivanovic                        http://leonora.org/~vladimir
2770 Cowper St.                                         vladimir@acm.org
Palo Alto, CA 94306-2447                                 +1 650 678 8014

[1] "The C Programming Language", B.W. Kenighan & D.M. Ritchie,
Prentice-Hall, 1978, pp. 179-219