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

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