[antlr-interest] ITLS

Sebastian Kaliszewski sk at z.pl
Mon Nov 22 11:53:52 PST 2004


John D. Mitchell wrote:
[snip]
> I'm saying that general purpose programming languages (GPPLs) almost
> completely miss that point and therefore the code that people write in
> those GPPLs are almost always extremely poor, confusing, bug-ridden,
> etc. implementations of the informally-specified (usually implicit),
> horribly designed (usually accreted rather than actually designed)
> languages that the programmer is creating and manipulating.

Well, just to clarify things and make your point more clear, which (might be 
no GPPL -- I 100% agree that typically they are bad) language you like then? 
Or which one is closest to your likings, or at list a step in right 
direction? Or what your ideal language be look like?

[snip]
> The mainstream (of the self-styled programming avant garde, anyways :-) is
> finally starting to play around in this direction.  To wit, look at all of
> the work on pattern languages and domain specific languages.  Look at all
> of the sudden, "revolutionary" interest in code generation and
> reflection-based code manipulation.  Look at the press that folks like
> Gosling got for working on a toolset based upon manipulating abstract
> representations of programs.  Etc.

1963 Lisp macros revisisted ;) ?

>  Heck, look at the growing buzz over the
> "Language Oriented Programming" pitch by the founder of JetBrains (the
> IntelliJ IDE company).

This all (LOP) looks nice at first glance but there are big problems sitting 
in there. First of the being the fast that definig a DSL is not that easy 
task --  doing it right requires above average competence. The author slides 
easily over that (fig. 2 lacks one important thing long ------> for creating 
proper DSL).

> 
> For example, look at the continuing evolution of "aspect oriented
> programming" -- they are trying to backfit the ability to create and
> manipulate (higher-level) languages on top of the existing GPPLs.  As their
> ad hoc approach continues to run into more and more fundamental problems,
> they continue to try to increase the power of their approach -- alas,
> mostly through more ad hoc measures (conventions, etc.).

Most of that AOP looks like (and IMHO in fact is) just a "higher order hack".


rgds
-- 
Sebastian Kaliszewski



 
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