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Re: Wirth-ian languages

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"Kaz Kylheku" <kaz@kylheku.com> wrote in message
news:20140428111524.742@kylheku.com...
> 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?

>> 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.

Yes we do. It wouldn't take me long to list a hundred things that are wrong
with C, yet after fixing all those the resulting language wouldn't do that
much more. It would just get rid of all the baggage, and have a smaller,
tidier and more streamlined language that is far nicer to use.

>> 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.

> 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.

Is this the same guy who devised MIX, a made-up machine language, to
describe algorithms in his books? He probably isn't too hot on designing
elegant languages then. And he may have been partly forced to migrate to C
for the same reasons everyone else has found it necessary to move in that 
direction.

I even started to move there myself a year and a half ago, but am now
rebelling and moving away again to do my own thing.

There are a couple of things that are good about C: the language is
ubiquitous, and compilers for it can generate pretty good code. But that
says nothing about the language itself, which 'sucks' (and even C
programmers agree about some of its problems).

But there is little else that can do the same job (ie. implement everything
else from the ground up). Hence the need for an alternative.

-- 
Bartc 

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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

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