Re: Enums vs. Algebraic Datatypes

> >Maybe it would be better to have a top 5 development priorities
> We do have the roadmap page which I think fills this role.

Maybe - the cvs news file and the roadmap seem to tell somewhat
different stories.

> Bryn is doing a great job with the user manual. It obviously takes
> time to come up with good examples and good way to present the
> existing features.

The user manual is improving fast. I appreciate that it's virtually
impossible for a Nice expert to retain an outsiders perspective. And
there are two stories to tell: clearly explain the computational model
of Nice; show how in-many-ways that can be similar to Java, and how in
very important ways it's better than Java.

> The big goal is to create a new language that is "more expressive,
> more modular and safer" than Java, while not breaking existing
> practices when they are fine (but focus on those that need to
> change). The functional and the multi-method aspects are means to
> this end.

In one sense "the functional aspects" are a matter of programming
style. In contrast, Nice *is* a multimethod language - we can write
code as-though it's Java but that's an illusion, we're using
multimethods. 


> Scala: I still need to understand it fully, but it seems the biggest 
> differences will be about Scala being class-based, and being farther 
> from Java (in syntax, and less integration it seems, like their own 
> collection hierarchy).

"the biggest differences will be about Scala being class-based"
So both Java and Scala are class-based; and Nice is not class-based,
Nice is based on datatypes and multimethods?

Paradoxically, Nice's syntax is closer to Java, and Nice more
effectively reuses Java libraries, but in a fundamental way Scala is
more like Java - it's based around classes.

best wishes, Isaac


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