Re: [[email protected]: Glad I am not on bootstrap]

Interesting idea - very interesting.......

Is it technically possible?

Mike
----- Original Message -----
From: "Simon Cozens" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2000 3:50 AM
Subject: [[email protected]: Glad I am not on bootstrap]


> Ben sent me this privately, with permission to forward it.
> He makes a bunch of points I agree with, so this saves me time
> typing them out. :)
>
> Simon
>
> ----- Forwarded message from Ben Tilly <[email protected]> -----
> Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 22:29:56 EDT
> From: "Ben Tilly" <[email protected]>
> Subject: Glad I am not on bootstrap
> To: [email protected]
>
> Talk about high-volume traffic!
>
> I decided to not show up there because I did not have enough to contribute
> to the discussion.  I still don't, nor would I have time to follow it.
>
> My one suggestion for them though.  Have one list.  But have that list
> require that titles have keywords for which sub-list it would be on.  Any
> email to the list with a title that did not fit the format would be
> rejected.
>
> Then anyone with a mail-filter can get the effect of multiple lists.  But
> anyone who wants (like Simon and Russ) could see the whole list in all its
> gory detail.
>
> Oh, and the idea of a pluggable front-end.  That was me.  I suggested it
> because I like Perl just how it is, but there is a real class of problems
> facing real people that Perl cannot addres, and it could.  And that class
of
> problems is getting a programming language in the hands of people from
very
> different linguistic backgrounds from English.
>
> To clarify the proposal:
>
> 1. It should be possible for Perl to have multiple parsing front-ends that
> can be switched between.
>
> 2. There should be support for writing a simply type of module that does
> nothing more than alias functions and variables and provide localized
> documentation to make it easy to "port" Perl modules to a different
> language.
>
> 3. This allows distribution of support by the fact that whoever does the
> translation de facto becomes the point person for supporting people who
use
> that localized version of the module. :-)
>
> As a perfectly grotesque note: this allows for significant changes in the
> Perl language to be acceptable in Perl 6, so long as there was a parser
that
> could still work for Perl 5 modules.
>
> To *really* clarify the proposal.
>
> I threw that out as an idea that I called bad.  I still think it is bad.
I
> also think that it is an inevitable step that someone will take soon (ie
> before Perl 7), and I think that whatever community first takes it will
find
> that the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages.  So if anyone else
thinks
> it is bad, well I agree.  That does not mean that it is wrong though...
>
> Cheers,
> Ben
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>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
> --
>  * Progress (n.): The process through which Usenet has evolved from
> smart people in front of dumb terminals to dumb people in front of
> smart terminals.  -- [email protected] (obscurity)