Re: [stack] Cat article submission to Doctor Dobbs Journal

Christopher Diggins <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Now I find a real disagreement. First-class functions aren't at all
> > part of the definition of "concatenative"

> My bad, I didn't mean to imply that. They are key to why Joy is so
> interesting (to me at least) though.

Definitely. You're right that they belong in the intro.

> > nor are branch statements
> > antithetical to concatenativity.

> I really didn't mean to imply that one neither. My point was that the
> fact that Manfred leaving branch  statements (by which I mean goto
> statements) out was significant (is that contentious?). I wasnt trying
> to say anything there about concatenative languages in general. I've
> tried to clarify.

What previous concatenative language had GOTO statements? I don't
think Manfred "left them out"... They're a little hard to put in, so
they were rare at best in other concatenative languages. I assumed you
were talking about special syntax for conditionals, which Manfred
removed the need for when he supplied function literals.

> > A possible replacement:

> > "Manfred's primary innovation with Joy was to introduce first class
> > functions and function literals (called quotations). The resulting
> > language shares many of the advantages of functional languages (e.g.
> > it is easy to reason about) and is particularly expressive."

> I like that, but the goto removal is significant, and should be left
> because with gotos you wouldn't have the nice rewriting properties
> that you have now.

Good point... But that's because of the removal of syntax (or the
regularization of syntax), not so much because of the removal of GOTOs
(which are merely a particular type of syntax, and one which most
concatenative languages don't have anyhow).

> > Unfortunately, this removes all mention of "concatenative" from your
> > article, but since you didn't really discuss it I don't think it's a
> > loss. I do think you could be more precise than "is particularly
> > expressive", though... I'm not sure what you mean by it, although it
> > looks like a compliment :-).

> By expressive I meant that we can say a lot with a little. (e.g. a few
> instructions can convey a sophisticated concept). I've tried to
> rephrase.

Cool.

> I look forward to more of your comments, thanks!

Having skimmed the rest, I like what you have from there on... I could
hunt for more nits to pick, but don't have the time and might not find
any anyhow.

> - Christopher

-Wm