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

[Tony Kimball <address@hidden>]

Quoth S. Alexander Jacobson on Thursday, 6 December:

: * refactoring keeps your code clean and understandable
:   (heavyweightness is actually limits refactoring.)

This is an interesting point, I think.  Languages which are most
amenable to refactoring include Smalltalk/Self, CLOS/Scheme,
ML/Miranda/OCAML, and Forth in roughly decreasing order of facility.
Languages which are relatively resistant to refactoring are Python,
Java, Python, C++, Eiffel, and algolics, in roughly increasing order of
intransigence.  I'd put OO Perl smack dab in the middle, and top-down
Perl way out past Ada and Pascal in the extreme.  But I'm seeing a lot
more disparity than similarity among the neighborhoods of this
ordering, and factoring out orthogonal governing features is a
challenge.