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000018_icon-group-sender _Mon Aug 29 09:13:12 1994.msg
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Received: by cheltenham.cs.arizona.edu; Mon, 29 Aug 1994 09:07:56 MST
To: icon-group-l@cs.arizona.edu
Date: 29 Aug 1994 09:13:12 -0400
From: nmw@ios.com (Nick Williams)
Message-Id: <33smt8$meg@ios.com>
Organization: Internet Online Services
Sender: icon-group-request@cs.arizona.edu
References: <Cv9Jvr.AC4@world.std.com>
Subject: Re: Icon - still alive??
Errors-To: icon-group-errors@cs.arizona.edu
In article <Cv9Jvr.AC4@world.std.com>,
Michael Sikillian <Lexigen@world.std.com> wrote:
>I have been writing some cataloguing and index applications in a PC
>database program. I know icon has been out there for a while and
>have an intuition that it probably could do this easier than the db.
>Is icon a viable language, or just some grand experiment?
>Is it a fringe type thing with a cult following, or a real tool?
In my view Icon is a language that has a lot of potential, but is still
some development away from becoming good enough for large applications.
Some of the features it needs but sorely lacks are:
1) separate compilation, preferably into a language other than C (the
code produced by the Icon compiler in an effort to do things C was
not meant to is awful);
2) support for multiple different kinds of tables so that table
interfaces to database files can be implemented (think of perl);
3) a better Icon-C calling interface (the C-Icon calling ability should
be put back in as well).
That's just to start, but it is that not much, not when compared with the
positively huge strides that have been made since version 6. I for one
would like to volunteer some time an effort to that end, since Icon is
one of my favourite languages. For the moment I only use it for small
tasks. On the other hand, Icon's graphics facilities are great and only
getting better (there's even a GUI building tool of sorts [vib]); for
your needs, Icon might be good enough, so I can only encourage you to
check it out and make your call.
>Thanks
>Michael Sikillian
>Lexigen Software
Nick