[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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