Re: Rather, DSSLs increase modularity, productivity

[Mike Newhall <address@hidden>]

Dan Sugalski wrote:

>Well... maybe, but not in my experience. On the projects I've worked on
>with embedded LISP-like languages we all swore with some regularity at the
>languages *because* of their inherent LISP-y nature. Writing the code was
>more of a headache and hassle, and went more slowly than it would've in
>the embedding language.
>
       I've heard whispered rumors and apocryphal stories about some 
programmers actually not loving LISP.  I guess it wasn't an urban 
legend.  :-)  LISP alas is just not for everyone.  For me, though, I'd 
much rather program in Scheme than C++, Java, or Perl.  I'm pretty sure 
I'd be a lot more productive in it too.

>I think you're excessively discounting the experience most programmers
>have with functional languages (which approaches zero) nor the difficulty
>that most will have making the jump in thinking.
>

       I agree; buy-in in the Real World is always an issue.  I was 
really speaking of how *I* would implement a large project; I don't 
really expect an organization with no functional programming advocates 
to adopt this strategy.

>Besides, in a hypothetical large project where the DSL cost is no object,
>the choice most everyone would jump for is a DSL that's almost identical
>to the language that's used to implement the project, only with all the
>sucky bits removed, and the tedious bits abstracted away with masses of
>syntactic sugar.
>

       If I took C++ and got rid of all the parts that suck, and added 
all the parts that are missing, I'd end up with Scheme. :-)  I am 
outside the "almost everyone" group -- I implement in C++ and have 
absolutely no desire to program in a language that is anything like it.







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