Re: C++ sucks for games

From: Rahul Jain (rjain_at_nyct.net)
Date: 10/31/04 

Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 00:00:04 -0400

"Mark A. Gibbs" <x_gibbsmark@rogers.com_x> writes:

>> Eh? The code Phillipa posted was exactly the same as the C++ code
>> exceppt
>> without explicit types. The syntax was maybe misleading -- the equality
>> operator in most functional languages is not assignment, but a definition
>> of a term. I.e. foo = 5 means that foo is, by definition, 5.
>
> and what is 5? an integer? a byte value? a floating point number? a
> bignum? all of the above (a variant type)?

5 is whatever it is. "A byte value" is nonsense: that's just a modular
integer, I suppose. In most languages, explicit notation is required to
make something FP (thank god). I don't know why the hell anyone would
use an implementation where 5 needed to be a bignum. An object can't be
of all kinds of types. It is of some specific type (in Lisp, actually,
this only applies to classes, which are a specific kind of type) which
has some set of supertypes. The mother of all types in Lisp is called T
(the name for cannonical true value, as well). All bindings in Lisp are
implicitly declared as being of type T. If the compiler can prove a more
stringent type declaration for the binding, it can, of course, use that
declaration intersected with any declaration explicitly given by the
programmer.

> things get even more muddled if you do "foo = b" where b is an object of
> some type. what type? who knows, you'll have to look elsewhere.

Yes, you look at where b's value comes from... What is so hard about
this?

> i realize the code she posted was the same, but it seems to be implying
> to me that foo is a new variable that's created without a type
> declaration. that is old school programming. modern languages require
> you to specify the type of a new variable.

Bahaha. You mean modern languages are designed for more primitive
compilation techniques and more fragmented type systems? I think not. 

-- 
Rahul Jain
rjain@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist

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