19 Aug
2001
19 Aug
'01
6:27 a.m.
On Sun, 19 Aug 2001, Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) wrote:
I've been told that LISP stands for Lots of Insane
Stupid Parentheses.
But could any language have punctuation more demented than C?
C's punctuation is simple and logical:
-Semicolons go at the end of any single line statement
-Openings of loop structures do NOT get a semicolon, because a semi-colon
denotes an end of an execution block, and a loop is not normally in and
of itself a statement (though it can be, and you can end a loop structure
with a semi-colon, and it can make sense to do this in certain
circumstances!)
-Loop code blocks are enclosed by {squiggly parens}, and every statement
within the loop block is terminated with a semi-colon as above
-Function code blocks are enclosed by squigglies, and then all the above
rules apply
That's it!
I think "for" loops in C are semantically bunk, but they work, and you can
do some interesting things with them.
If you want to talk stupid puncutation, let's talk Pascal!
program in C before they get here." When you
have a prof who writes
"puzzle code", like Alan Holub, undergrads are expected to follow stuff
like
while(*T++=*S++);
with NO formal preparation.
Crazy.
But the program there is over-enrolled. Their
approach to that is to
progressively keep increasing the volume of homework until there are
enough breakdowns to get the enrollment down. I call that sadistic.
They call that "social Darwinism". If it were so, then they are
breeding for STAMINA, not computer science skill.
Good point.
If it were to live up to its claims of portability, if
it were to
survive MICROS~1's perversions of it, and if they would give me
POINTERS (OK, intrinsically non-portable), then it could be a
reasonable approach.
My feelings on Java (and other web technologies like Flash) is that it
turns the web into merely an application delivery vehicle. The
instantaneous nature of the web as a content delivery system is lost. But
then there are some things that you just can't practically do with
traditional HTML technology alone (and I mean with augmentations like PHP
and CGI/Perl). Allowing one to scroll realtime through a database is one
example; that's something that needs a Java applet to pull off.
But I digress...........
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org