Re: My thoughts on C# and gaming.

Emil Dotchevski wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 2:26 AM, Bill Kelly <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> Being able to do things like this is not what makes a language great.
>>> In fact I am not sure what makes most languages great. It seems to me
>>> that most languages should have been a C++ library or a LISP library
>>> instead -- all other differences are primarily syntactical in nature
>>> and thus not very interesting as far as I am concerned.
>>
>> Well, if we *truly* factor out syntax, don't we effectively end up
>> with a reduction-to-Turing-machine argument?
> 
> Are you saying that the different syntax is the most important
> difference between, say 6502 assembly and LISP? Or that C++ is the
> same as C because it uses the same horrible syntax?

You're right, I was overstating my position when I suggested syntax
alone might differentiate all languages from Turing machines.

I hope the rest of my post conveyed that I think there is something
more subtle going on.

The proponents of Lisp (and Scheme) claim that its syntax is deeply
connected to its "code is data, and data is code" nature.

If we change the syntax of Forth very much, we're likely to lose the
ability to self-bootstrap the language from a practically featureless
kernel.

If we drop certain aspects of Ruby's syntax, we'd lose the ability to
implement uncluttered Domain Specific Languages in Ruby itself, which
is a capability of Ruby valued by its enthusiasts.

An example of a Ruby DSL, in this case an assembler for Common
Intermediate Language bytecode:

  http://www.iunknown.com/2005/12/refining-the-ru.html

   require 'RbDynamicMethod'

   RbDynamicMethod::create_ruby_method('say_hello') do
     include  'System, System.Collections'
     ldstr    'Hello, World, int = {0}, double = {1}'
     ldc_i4   42
     box      'Int32'
     ldc_r8   3.141592654
     box      'Double'
     call     'static Console.WriteLine(String,Object,Object)'
     br_s     'end_of_method'
     ldstr    'Goodbye, World'
     call     'static Console.WriteLine(String)'
     label    'end_of_method'
     ldc_i4_4
     ret
   end

   RbDynamicMethod::say_hello


The above has the appearance of CIL assembly code, but it is pure
Ruby.


All of the above contributing to my feeling that syntax can be a
crucial element of the nature of a language, and why I'm not able
to dismiss syntactical differences as 'not very interesting'.


Regards,

Bill


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