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000105_icon-group-sender _Mon Apr 26 16:25:09 1999.msg
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by baskerville.CS.Arizona.EDU (8.9.1a/8.9.1) id QAA08221
for icon-group-addresses; Mon, 26 Apr 1999 16:23:08 -0700 (MST)
Message-Id: <199904262323.QAA08221@baskerville.CS.Arizona.EDU>
Delivered-To: icon-group@cs.arizona.edu
From: "Mark Evans" <evans@gte.net>
To: <icon-group@optima.CS.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: RE: Modula 3
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 15:48:12 -0500
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-----Original Message-----
R. Clayton:
I don't think they're comparable.
[...lots of theoretical points, then...]
Icon and Modula-3 are two of my favorite languages; I spend most of my time
programming Icon (my thesis work, for example).
--------------------------
Eka Laiman:
The "philosophy" of the language is totally different from that of
icon.
--------------------------
Both these answers give theory.
I already know that Icon came out of SNOBOL, and Modula-3 out of Pascal. So
what? A lot of people think that man evolved from a very lucky primordial
amoeba, but what does that say about the utility either of man or amoebas? Not
much.
My question was about practical field experience from people who have used both
Icon and Modula-3 in the field, for real projects. Let's assume a hypothetical
scenario in which you tried to develop the same program under Icon and Modula-3
simultaneously. How would your experience turn out?
Part of the reason for asking this question is that the Icon Project is now
growing many different branches. Count them all: Jcon, Godiva, Unicon, Icon-2
(and now, Ray Pereda is heading off to Microsoft with dollar signs in his eyes).
So evidently, a lot of important Icon people admit that Icon must evolve into
something else, otherwise it will remain a toy language. (It is still useful
for system scripts.)
Modula 3 is supposed to be capable of handling vast software systems without all
the header file nightmares of C++. It is supposed to capture essentially all
the good and "proven" features of modern software compiler design practice,
without all the bad stuff (but still allowing for low-level machine access as
required, in controlled interfaces). Whether it was based on Pascal or BASIC or
FORTRAN or C or Ada does not answer the question of the Modula-3 language's
practical utility as it exists today, in comparison to Icon. The blurbs for
Icon make a lot of similar claims.
Modula-3 has some GUI stuff but it looks to me like it's not very
full-fledged -- rather like the situation with Icon.
The blurbs I have read from the Modula-3 home page indicate that some groups of
experienced C++ programmers never looked back after using Modula-3. That is
exactly the experience I had with Icon as far as string processing in C. I
don't know how I would feel about Modula-3 because I have never used it.
Maybe another way to ask my question is this: if Icon evolves, should it evolve
in the direction of Modula-3? Even partly?
Mark