Re: Lightness vs. Largeness

[Scott McKay <address@hidden>]

At 02:53 PM 12/5/01, Robert Spector wrote:
> I think
> an LL has to be "low overhead" -- simple expressions like
> "(+ 1 2)" can run on their own.
>  
> From the discussions on the list it seems that
> "programming-in-the-large" implies OO and mandatory
> types.
>  

I don't see how "programming in the large" implies
"mandatory types".
I've written 100,0000-line Lisp applications that don't have any
type
declarations.

I also think that OO using class-based modularity requires more
overhead
than a CLOS-style generic function-based approach, where you can
just
go ahead and call (and define) functions outside of the context of a
class.
This to me implies that OO need not be "heavy".

> Question: 
> is an LL then constitutionally incompatible with solving the problems
> implied by the phrase "programming-in-the-large"?  
> (Or is that phrase somehow pejorative?)
>  

I see no contradiction in postulating a light-weight language that
scales
neatly to larger problems.