Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > comp.lang.misc > #2043

Re: Wirth-ian languages

From Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com>
Newsgroups comp.lang.misc
Subject Re: Wirth-ian languages
Date 2014-04-28 18:47 +0000
Organization Aioe.org NNTP Server
Message-ID <20140428111524.742@kylheku.com> (permalink)
References <ljlv93$g39$1@dont-email.me> <ljm3a3$hho$1@speranza.aioe.org>

Show all headers | View raw

On 2014-04-28, Joe Hynes <theda@southpark.net> wrote:
> On 2014-04-28, bruce axtens <bugmagnet@outlook.com> wrote:
>> Is it fair to say that most of the Wirth-ian programming languages are 
>> either dead or in palliative care? Delphi seems to be about the only 
>> thing left with any life in it. Am I missing anything?
>
> There's a pretty active FreePascal project and there's always Ada.
> There's enough legacy Ada to keep quite a few people in business and there
> always seems to be some small amount of new Ada going on. Personally, I
> believe Ada is Wirthian in spirit but there were and are some damn good
> language designers and implementers involved with it. Ada is mostly a clean
> sheet of paper even though it may not look like that. I mean Ada up to
> around 95. After that things started to deteriorate into the C++ world of
> complexity and lack of restraint. Now it's harder to see its roots.
>
> Modula-3 has a small but active community also.
>
> What do you want to conclude? Probably Wirth's priorities and aesthetics are
> not widely shared by people who choose programming languages for deployment.
> gcc and Linux have taken over and blotted out most of the native species.
> Linux is based on C so using anything but C/C++ will eventually bring
> you to a wall you can't scale.

C is pretty much a "Wirthian" language. The basic model of program organization
and comptuation in, say, Modula-2 or C is the same: statically typed, block
scoped language based on machine-language-like primitive types, and simple
aggregates thereof, with poor support for polymorphism. Programs in these
languages define "mills" that pump word-sized data through a Von Neumann
machine.

Nobody really needs alternatives to C which are almost the same thing,
just with more clunky syntax and pointless limitations.

> Most people don't get there but the constant
> stomping out of anything that isn't gcc has been very destructive and
> limiting generally.

Nobody is holding gun to anyone's head regarding what to include in a distro
of free software, and you can start your own if you don't like any of them.

Freeware distros give you more programming languages as standard packages
than any proprietary OS.

> That and in the old days most of the technical stuff was left to technical
> people. Ever since the Harvard MBA program the CEO and people that have no
> idea what they're talking about are the ones choosing stuff that most code
> is written in.

Even if that is true now, it has no bearing on the rejection of things
Pascalian, which is rooted in the old days.

When Lisp hacker Richard Stallman decided, the middle 1980's that the thing
to do to kickstart the freware movement was to make a C compiler, that probably
didn't have to do with Havard MBA's choosing stuff that code is written in.

Look, even Knuth caved in: http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/faq.html
See: "What is your favorite programming language".  That was more than 20 years
ago.

Back to comp.lang.misc | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

Wirth-ian languages bruce axtens <bugmagnet@outlook.com> - 2014-04-28 16:23 +0000
  Re: Wirth-ian languages Joe Hynes <theda@southpark.net> - 2014-04-28 17:31 +0000
    Re: Wirth-ian languages Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2014-04-28 18:47 +0000
      Re: Wirth-ian languages "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2014-04-28 20:35 +0100
        Re: Wirth-ian languages Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2014-04-28 20:18 +0000
          Re: Wirth-ian languages "James Harris" <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2014-04-28 22:50 +0100
            Re: Wirth-ian languages "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2014-04-29 00:03 +0100
              Re: Wirth-ian languages Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2014-04-28 23:51 +0000
              Re: Wirth-ian languages "James Harris" <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2014-04-29 07:59 +0100
                Re: Wirth-ian languages "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2014-04-29 10:04 +0100
                Re: Wirth-ian languages "James Harris" <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2014-04-29 11:33 +0100
                Re: Wirth-ian languages "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-04-29 07:41 -0400
            Re: Wirth-ian languages "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-04-28 21:46 -0400
              Re: Wirth-ian languages "James Harris" <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2014-04-29 08:24 +0100
                Re: Wirth-ian languages "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-04-29 07:33 -0400
                Re: Wirth-ian languages "James Harris" <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2014-04-29 14:38 +0100
                Re: Wirth-ian languages "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-04-30 21:28 -0400
                Re: Wirth-ian languages "James Harris" <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2014-05-01 10:44 +0100
              Re: Wirth-ian languages "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2014-04-29 09:59 +0200
                Re: Wirth-ian languages Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2014-04-29 15:51 +0000
                Re: Wirth-ian languages "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2014-04-30 10:57 +0200
                Re: Wirth-ian languages Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2014-04-30 15:47 +0000
                Re: Wirth-ian languages "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2014-05-01 10:18 +0200
                Re: Wirth-ian languages Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2014-05-01 16:56 +0000
                Re: Wirth-ian languages "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2014-05-02 10:10 +0200
                Re: Wirth-ian languages "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2014-04-30 18:27 +0100
                Re: Wirth-ian languages "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2014-05-01 10:18 +0200
                Re: Wirth-ian languages Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2014-05-01 17:10 +0000
                Re: Wirth-ian languages "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2014-05-02 09:22 +0200
  Re: Wirth-ian languages "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-04-28 20:59 -0400
    Re: Wirth-ian languages "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-04-28 21:10 -0400
    Re: Wirth-ian languages Nils M Holm <news2009@t3x.org> - 2014-04-29 07:52 +0000
    Re: Wirth-ian languages "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2014-04-29 09:45 +0100
  Re: Wirth-ian languages Jacko <jackokring@gmail.com> - 2014-04-29 05:37 -0700

csiph-web