[REBOL] Re: What language am I looking for?
From: woodward:shore at: 13-May-2001 11:14
Hey -
I would refer you to the following article concerning language selection:
http://www.paulgraham.com/paulgraham/avg.html
Basically it describes how the Yahoo Store system was built - primarilly
in LISP! The basic argument made by the author is that you should always
use the most powerful language that you have available to program in...
The major feature that he cites for LISPs power is it's macro capability -
in other words it's ability to write code for you.
To quote the author:
I ll begin with a shockingly controversial statement: programming
languages vary in power.
...
Everyone knows it s a mistake to write your whole program by hand in
machine language.What s less often understood is that there is a more
general principle here:that if you have a choice of several languages,it
is,all other things being equal,a mistake to program in anything but the
most powerful one.
I would argue that REBOL is as powerful as LISP - maybe not as mature, but
certainly as powerful. In any case it makes for an interesting read. I'm
not sure that I agree that LISP is the most powerful language available -
it really depends on what you're going to be doing. If I want to write a
device driver, LISP would be worse than anemic for that kind of task. C
would be a much more powerful choice. Languages vary in power - depending
on the context in which they are used.
- Porter
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\X/ \MiGA - Make up your own mind. "Spoon!"
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