[Tfug] Language choices

[Bexley Hall]

Hi, Chris,

--- Chris Niswander <cn.tfug.account at bitboost.com>
wrote:

> At 12:24 AM 10/30/2006 -0800, Bexley Hall wrote:
> >Note that I had previously commented that, were it
> >not for parens, LISP would be an ideal choice in
> >that regard.  I also commented that parens *seem*
> >to be impossible to do away with.
> 
> If punctuation is a problem in your user
> environment, you can pick a language
> that *includes only a minimal number of
> nonalphanumeric characters*, and for each
> character that isn't whitespace or alphanumeric,
> instead use a pronounceable word (which becomes a
> new language keyword.)

Yes, a bit of a "hack".  But, all that does is
force users to say the word *if* reading their
code to someone else.  Otherwise, it is just an
encumberance.

E.g., method invocations go from:

object.method

to:

object dot method

I'm not sure that counts as an improvement.  :<

Ideally, the language wouldn't have that syntactic
*structure*.

> Some complications would arise if in your original
> language of choice a lack of whitespace adjacent 
> to a nonalphanumeric character sometimes
> has *necessary* semantic value.

Yes -- as is the case for REXX string concatenation.

> Maybe this makes Lisp good?

Yeah -- except for all the parens!  :<

> I wonder what other languages have only a small
> number of nonalphanumeric characters.  (At the
> moment only languages are coming to mind that
> have many, such as C++ and Perl. :-) )

It seems like newer languages rely more heavily
on punctuation.  Perhaps because they try to cram 
more features/capabilities/flexibility into their
syntax?

> I think this would only require a fairly simple
> preprocessor, or modest modifications to your
> tokenizer or parser if you plan
> to implement/customize your own interpreter.

Yes, it's an option.  I have been hoping to find
some obscure little language (perhaps owing its
obscurity to the fact that it is NOT as expressive
as other languages!) that would fit the bill...

--don


 
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