Re: succinctness = power

[Sundar Narasimhan <address@hidden>]

   Perhaps their biggest weakness is that their initial
   proponents did not demand linguistic mechanisms that would help
   programmers integrate patterns into programs.

   On the other hand, Erich Gamma promised me a beer and an explanation
   for why such a linguistic encapsulation would be a bad idea.  I
   haven't had a chance to collect, but I imagine the argument might be
   that it would inhibit further discovery.  However, I think the Lisp
   experience suggests contrariwise.

Shriram: I'll bite. Could you say more why you believe this?  I've
always believed that patterns were useful precisely because they were
NOT wedded to particular language hacks, and consequently more
powerful in terms of mapping one programmer's mental constructs onto
another -- especially when it comes to context-sensitive application.