Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language

From: Joona I Palaste (palaste_at_cc.helsinki.fi)
Date: 02/07/04 

Date: 7 Feb 2004 20:42:30 GMT

Y2KYZFR1 <jarrodhroberson@yahoo.com> scribbled the following
on comp.lang.c:
> Joona I Palaste <palaste@cc.helsinki.fi> wrote in message news:<bvvjqj$4fb$1@oravannahka.helsinki.fi>...
>> Richard Heathfield <dontmail@address.co.uk.invalid> scribbled the following
>> on comp.lang.c:
>> > Larry Hazel wrote:
>> >> Christopher Benson-Manica wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> When I need a language that's easy to use and readable, I turn
>> >>> directly to C. Don't let me stop you, though.
>> >>
>> >> C? Easy to read? You have got to be kidding.
>>
>> > Compared to the other languages in this crosspost? Damn right it's easy to
>> > read! :-)
>>
>> > I mean yes, okay, I know what you mean. Any sufficiently advanced IOCCC
>> > entry is indistinguishable from line noise. But not /all/ C programs are
>> > IOCCC entries!
>>
>> I find C harder to read than Java, and easier to read than C++. I
>> don't know about Ada, as I've never seen it. But C and C++ are a
>> breeze compared to the likes of Perl, Python and Lisp. They look like
>> C looked while I was still a BASIC programmer: a random jumble of
>> punctuation marks.

> you have obviously never even seen a Python program, since it does not
> use any punction marks. It ( and Lua ) are about as close to
> executable pseudo-code as you can get. Python ( and Lua ) is
> "comprehendable" by anyone that can read english for the most part. C
> and C++ are not.

> Python enforces rules about formatting even, so everyones Python code
> HAS to conform to the same formatting rules, thus contributing to even
> more "readibility"

You might be right about that. I know neither Perl nor Python, but I
have looked at both - and while Perl looks like a random jumble of
punctuation marks, Python is actually more readable. Not that I could
write a Python program to do anything beyond "Hello world", though -
but I think I could if I took the trouble to learn it. 

-- 
/-- Joona Palaste (palaste@cc.helsinki.fi) ------------- Finland --------\
\-- http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste --------------------- rules! --------/

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