[REBOL] Re: [why-REBOL] Pros and Cons / what's so special
From: g:santilli:tiscalinet:it at: 24-Jun-2004 12:18
Hi bry,
On Thursday, June 24, 2004, 10:01:51 AM, you wrote:
>> PARSE (and all that it implies)
bic> I'm curious what do you consider to be an 'implication' of Parse? When I think
bic> of implication in the context of a programming language I do not think of
bic> implied uses for parts of the language, but implied ideas about the problem
bic> domains to which the language is applied and
bic> implications about the nature of
bic> programming itself.
PARSE is an example of what the other languages do not have -
dialect. PARSE is a dialect to build dialects too, so it's not
like "hey I have this cool module to parse strings". It's the
concept, not the function --- other languages are not value-based
do they can't have PARSE.
>> protocols
bic> this is something that I think libraries, if included in the distribution of
bic> the
bic> language, can give equivalency to rebol's.
bic> that I might have to do an import statement to use that library doesn't really
bic> bother me.
Same here --- it's the concept of a PORT as a series abstraction.
Some languages have similar things but they are not as simple and
general.
>> human friendly syntax
bic> this is a mirage, to do simple things yeah like send [bry--itnisk--com] 'hi', my
Wrong, it's not the "scripting language" syntax to be "human
friendly". Not all humans are programmers so that wouldn't be that
useful. It's the values that have a human friendly syntax. How do
you write a date in other languages? How do you write a URL? See,
most languages do not have the concepts at all either.
>> reasonable size
bic> do you mean reasonable size in the size of the language implementation, don't
bic> know if that matters for most things, if you mean reasonable size in the
bic> context
bic> of the amount of code one has to write to do things yes this is always a
bic> benefit.
Both. The size of the interpreter shows how elegant its design is.
An elegant design is ALWAYS a benefit.
Regards,
Gabriele.
--
Gabriele Santilli <[g--santilli--tiscalinet--it]> -- REBOL Programmer
Amiga Group Italia sez. L'Aquila --- SOON: http://www.rebol.it/
