Re: What would your ideal language be like...

[Francois-Rene Rideau <address@hidden>]

On Tue, Feb 18, 2003 at 11:19:24AM -0500, Kevin Kelleher wrote:
> Fine, but if I have to *hunt* to discover how a language deals
> with files and strings, it is a clear indication that the language is
> made for a domain quite different from the one in which I work.
If you complain about having to learn, and about things not being
taylored for your own precise needs and priorities,
it is a clear indication that you should get another job,
and hire someone else to do the programming for you.

> If a language is so cool that it is worthless for systems programming,
> I may want to read about it, but will absolutely not use it.
Just because the answer to your question isn't right at the start
of the documentation (in the first five chapters, as in your complaint)
doesn't mean it isn't in the documentation.
Maybe you should learn about such wonderful inventions as
a table of contents, an index, a search engine, an expert system, etc.

For instance, in the CLHS, file operations are described in chapters
19 to 23, as indicated in the table of contents; but you may prefer
to go to the symbol index, and directly consult the articles for OPEN-FILE,
(or better, WITH-OPEN-FILE). Of course, so as to learn the language, you'd
better start with a tutorial rather than the language specification
(I doubt file operations will be in the first five chapters, either).
You'll also profitably read some source code from one of the vast collection
of freely available programs on the internet -- one of which may already
do most of what you're trying to do.

That said, it seems that what you want is perl.
There you've found it. Now go away.

[ François-René ÐVB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ]
[  TUNES project for a Free Reflective Computing System  | http://tunes.org  ]
Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM'.
	-- Alan Cox