nu.kanga.list.mud-dev

1404: Re: [MUD-Dev] Introduction

cg@ami-cg.graysage.edmonton.ab.ca (Chris Gray) writes:

> [Chris L:]
> :C has adavantages in having a very small clean syntax.  There's a lot
> :to be said for that.  Like ColdC I try to be very C-like in my
> :language, except that its type-less, pointer-less, has no concept of a
> :process environment, and doesn't really have a stack outside of the
> :execution of an individual method (everything is a message).
> 
> Erf! I can't let that go by! C has a small clean syntax??? C has a
> horrible syntax, and when you add the preprocessor and then C++ goop,
> it isn't even close to small! A language with a small clean syntax
> (but which has some other fundamental problems) is Pascal.

Actually, if you don't get into C++ (which is indeed evil and overly
complex) and don't consider the preprocessor (which is entirely
outside the realm of the language), the syntax is quite small, and
actually quite clean.  The only problem is that as an expression-based
(as opposed to statement based, stack based, or message based) one
does have to worry about precedence in operators, which can be
eliminated by judicious use of parenthesis and whitespace.

	-DaR
--
Dan Root - dar@thekeep.org