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Re: a style question:

From Bartc <bc@freeuk.com>
Newsgroups comp.lang.c
Subject Re: a style question:
Date 2015-09-01 22:53 +0100
Organization A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID <ms56ld$lsf$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References (5 earlier) <d4k6i5Ff37rU1@mid.uni-berlin.de> <ms2qfd$v8c$1@dont-email.me> <d4lu84Fr132U1@mid.uni-berlin.de> <ms4lr9$dih$1@dont-email.me> <d4mh43F2geiU1@mid.uni-berlin.de>

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On 01/09/2015 21:45, Jens Thoms Toerring wrote:
> Bartc <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:

>> It doesn't have general purpose OO features; one reason is that many of
>> the problems for which they would be needed in C++, are already solved
>> in the language (generics and polymorphism for example). (The main such
>> requirement has actually been overloading 'to-string' for printing user
>> types, and that can be done with a discreet mechanism to link a type
>> with a function).
>
> In other posts you had given the impression that it were a com-
> piled language, but now it's an interpreted one. I guess you are
> aware that there are some differences between those two and that
> an interpreted language may take some "liberties" that aren't
> possible for a compiled one.

I have two private languages: one is statically typed and compiled, at 
about the same level as C, and the other is dynamically typed and 
interpreted. It's the latter that has all the features, and I use the 
first one to implement it. Notice there's a big gap in the middle where 
some people like to put C++, but I have no need for!

Similarly, CPython is currently implemented in C. I don't see what 
benefit there would be in switching to C++. Python has, for example, 
flexible strings, but it doesn't need the implementation language to 
have flexible strings too!

  So it's a bit like comparing apples
> to bananas. What about the execution speed? C++ aims at retaining
> a similar speed as C and seems to fare not too bad in that respect.
> I guess that this hardly is possible with an interpreted one. Care
> to show any meaningful benchmarks?

I'm not going to pretend the interpreted language is as fast as C or 
C++. In numeric benchmarks, it might be a magnitude slower.

(But I have long experience of balancing the two kinds of language I 
use: if you get it right, an application mixing compiled and dynamic 
languages is not going to be significantly slower than one that has 100% 
native code.)

This is not the point however (and after all some clever chap can come 
along and a create a fast JIT tracing compiler for it); I'm using this 
as an example of designing a language where you can have the features, 
without the visible overheads and complexity. A lot can be applied to a 
C-like static language too.

> Is it bound to single processor architecture and/or operating
> system? Inquirung minds may want to know.

(The interpreter can be translated to C source, and therefore could run 
on a wide range of platforms. It's been tried on x86, x64, ARM-32, and 
on Windows and Linux. Notice again, I don't need to target C++; it 
doesn't buy me anything.)

> And then I've still not seen a shred of a real description of your
> language, just a very vague and general description, which might fit
> the advertizing blurb for a lot of other interpreted languages. With-
> out any reasonable documentation there's nothing to compare it to
> C++, it's all claims you made. You wrote
>
>    "that can do much of what C++ can do, and with none of the fuss"
>
> Either substantiate your claims or better refrain from making
> them.

I've already explained above. I didn't go into details because it's not 
that different from many other dynamic languages. Just substitute 
Python, Ruby, Lua etc, they can all do the same. (Although they do all 
have OO too, they don't need it for this basic stuff.)

(The language is real enough though; here's an example: 
http://pastebin.com/dCpGzUps, which is part of a compiler, that 
generates C code. As I said, nothing remarkable, but it does make use of 
expanding lists and strings with little fuss, as I also said.)

-- 
Bartc

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Thread

a style question: G G <gdotone@gmail.com> - 2015-08-31 02:30 -0700
  Re: a style question: Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2015-08-31 21:40 +1200
  Re: a style question: jt@toerring.de (Jens Thoms Toerring) - 2015-08-31 09:52 +0000
  Re: a style question: Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2015-08-31 03:24 -0700
    Re: a style question: Bartc <bc@freeuk.com> - 2015-08-31 11:50 +0100
      Re: a style question: Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2015-08-31 13:21 +0100
        Re: a style question: Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2015-08-31 05:41 -0700
        Re: a style question: Bartc <bc@freeuk.com> - 2015-08-31 14:55 +0100
          Re: a style question: Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2015-08-31 15:50 +0100
            Re: a style question: Bartc <bc@freeuk.com> - 2015-08-31 18:40 +0100
      Re: a style question: Melzzzzz <mel@zzzzz.com> - 2015-08-31 17:46 +0200
        Re: a style question: Bartc <bc@freeuk.com> - 2015-08-31 17:27 +0100
          Re: a style question: Melzzzzz <mel@zzzzz.com> - 2015-08-31 18:42 +0200
      Re: a style question: Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> - 2015-08-31 17:41 +0000
        Re: a style question: Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2015-08-31 15:33 -0700
          Re: a style question: Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> - 2015-09-01 08:34 +0000
      Re: a style question: Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2015-09-01 07:40 +1200
        Re: a style question: Bartc <bc@freeuk.com> - 2015-08-31 21:36 +0100
          Re: a style question: Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2015-09-01 08:51 +1200
            Re: a style question: Bartc <bc@freeuk.com> - 2015-08-31 22:37 +0100
              Re: a style question: Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2015-08-31 15:24 -0700
                Re: a style question: Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2015-09-02 19:37 +1200
          Re: a style question: jt@toerring.de (Jens Thoms Toerring) - 2015-08-31 23:33 +0000
            Re: a style question: Bartc <bc@freeuk.com> - 2015-09-01 01:13 +0100
              Re: a style question: Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2015-09-01 18:21 +1200
              Re: a style question: jt@toerring.de (Jens Thoms Toerring) - 2015-09-01 15:23 +0000
                Re: a style question: Bartc <bc@freeuk.com> - 2015-09-01 18:06 +0100
                Re: a style question: Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> - 2015-09-01 20:39 +0000
                Re: a style question: jt@toerring.de (Jens Thoms Toerring) - 2015-09-01 20:45 +0000
                Re: a style question: Bartc <bc@freeuk.com> - 2015-09-01 22:53 +0100
            Re: a style question: Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2015-08-31 17:51 -0700

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