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000005_icon-group-sender _Fri Aug 19 14:45:16 1994.msg
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Received: by cheltenham.cs.arizona.edu; Fri, 19 Aug 1994 08:57:50 MST
To: icon-group-l@cs.arizona.edu
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 1994 14:45:16 GMT
From: dkuhlman@netcom.com (G. David Kuhlman)
Message-Id: <dkuhlmanCusEBG.Ku@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
Sender: icon-group-request@cs.arizona.edu
References: <330a3u$3vq@shum.cc.huji.ac.il>
Subject: Re: Simple syntax? A definition?
Errors-To: icon-group-errors@cs.arizona.edu
Zvi Lamm (mslamm@pluto.cc.huji.ac.il) wrote:
: Following the recent thread on perl vs. Icon, and posts about UNIX
: *tools* I started thinking on how one can define what are the good
: qualities a synatx should have.
: It appears to me that what counts is simplicity. A simple syntax would be
: one that can easaly be built (NOT parsed) by programs (so that the
: language can be used as a tool interface). It would also be easy for
: humans (that's us!) to learn and use.
: Does anyone have suggestions on how to define this in a more mathematical
: or precise way? I thought about YACC clauses/sentence. But I am not sure
: it's enough because the YACC approach narrows you down to LALR.
I don't know how to define simplicity in a language. But I would really
like to know how far out on the complexity end of that scale C++ falls.
While considering and comparing the complexity of languages, you might
also want to think about the complexity of built in functions, the
number and complexity of operators, and the complexity of any commonly
used libraries. For example, the standard C library is extensive,
but any given part of it seems reasonably easy to learn. In contrast,
I find C++ class libraries very complex, not just because they
are large, but because of the connections (subclassing, overloaded
functions, virtual pure functions that *must* be implemented, etc.)
One aspect of Icon's complexity is in its rich set of operators
and built in functions.
--
----------------------
Dave Kuhlman Reify, Redwood City, CA
Internet: dkuhlman@netcom.com
Compuserve: 72470,116
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