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From: chuck@dartvax.UUCP (Chuck Simmons)
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: High-levelity
Message-ID: <2678@dartvax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 6-Jan-85 21:06:41 EST
Article-I.D.: dartvax.2678
Posted: Sun Jan  6 21:06:41 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 8-Jan-85 02:54:04 EST
References: <1242@bbncca.ARPA> <10@mit-athena.ARPA>
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Lines: 26

> ...
>For a large random list, bubblesort is atrociously slow, and quicksort 
>is about the best known.  A language that is "high-level" for sorting
>would express both elegantly.  (It might also have an elegant way of
>expressing the best and worst cases for each.)

Wouldn't a "high-level" language simply allow you to request that your
data structure be sorted without you having to worry about how it got
that way?

>I might also point out that there are several non-equivalent ways
>to invert a matrix.  Can your language express all of them elegantly?
>If not, it's not a "high-level mathematical" language.
>...
>Basic was invented as a substitute for Fortran, Algol, and all those
>other academic playthings.  Surely you don't mean to suggest that Basic
>is a high-level language!? :-)
>
>				John Chambers

In Basic (Dartmouth Basic 6, more or less the original) I would
invert a matrix A using the statement:

100 MAT A = INV (A)

What could be more high-level?