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Re: LFM + LFSP = LFE?



On 2003.06.17 16:19 Marco Baringer wrote:
> 
> WHAT KIND OF ARGUMENT IS "TOO POWERFUL"?

It's a good argument, actually, though perhaps not optimally
worded.   A language that prevents you from making a particular
error is certainly less powerful than a language that lets
you make that error, but might well be more valuable (depending
on what else the error-preventing feature stops you from doing).

> a note to language designers: don't worry about the syntax, the syntax
> is the easy part, it's the API which is hard. i think it took me about
> 5 minutes to figure out the difference between at atom and a list in
> common lisp, but i still try to call gethash like (gethash hash key)
> as opposed to (gethash key hash) (analogous things exist in every
> useful and used library).

I disagree, a language designer *should* worry about the syntax.  To
come up with syntax that someone can learn in five minutes takes
hard work or brilliant inspiration.  More importantly, the syntax of
a language determines as much as anything else what's easy to do in
the language and what's difficult (the other major determinants being
the API and the available tools).

> why people keep saying poorly written macros
> make code hard to read/maintain yet somehow a poorly written library
> doesn't will always be a mystery to me.

Completely agreed (though I don't recall anyone claiming that poorly
written libraries are OK...)

Michael

-----------------------------
Michael St. Hippolyte
http://www.bentodev.org