Xref: utzoo comp.arch:4726 comp.lang.misc:1573 Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ncar!gatech!bloom-beacon!mcgill-vision!mouse From: mouse@mcgill-vision.UUCP (der Mouse) Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Universal OS (was Re: Survey of Message-ID: <1089@mcgill-vision.UUCP> Date: 9 May 88 23:24:10 GMT References: <2845@mmintl.UUCP> <1543@hubcap.UUCP> <768@l.cc.purdue.edu> Organization: McGill University, Montreal Lines: 39 In article <768@l.cc.purdue.edu>, cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes: > In article <1543@hubcap.UUCP>, fpst@hubcap.UUCP (Steve Stevenson) writes: >> In article <762@l.cc.purdue.edu> cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes: >>> The language ... should ... try to include it _all_. >> You really don't want this WITHOUT a tremendous thought. PL/I and >> ADA are the obvious counterexamples. > The problems with PL/I, [...more about what the problems are...] > We can do much better. I am not convinced we can. Show me. > This means that the user must be able to use notation which he > considers easy to read, [...]. The problem is that the next person won't consider it easy to read, or at least not as easy to read. You rapidly wind up with a maintenance nightmare. See the Obfuscated C Code Contest for examples of what can be done with a language that isn't even particularly well suited to introducing new notation! (Can you *imagine* what might come out of an Obfuscated C++ Code Contest?!) > This is done in mathematics all the time, and does not lead to > problems. Mathematical papers are much, much, smaller than computer programs. The source to the editor I'm using right now, for example, is between 19 and 20 thousand lines. This would be approximately three hundred pages of paper. How many math papers are that long? And this isn't even a really large program. I just did a quick scan of the kernel source directory, and I would estimate that it's close to 150 thousand lines, or two to two-and-a-half thousand pages. For programs on the same order of magnitude of size as the typical math paper, I would expect problems no more serious than arise in mathematics. der Mouse uucp: mouse@mcgill-vision.uucp arpa: mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu