[Coco] APL, BASIC, and Eric S Raymond was Re: webserver

[Willard Goosey]

On Sun, Jan 03, 2010 at 04:10:25AM +0000, wdg3rd at comcast.net wrote:
> APL is my own favorite language, but everybody knows it's write-only code.

Have you poked at the IAPL interpeter under OS-9?  I've played with it
a little, seems to work OK.  I'm not sure that sacrificing speed for
universal workspace compatibility was a wise design decision, but it
probably made sense at the time (IAPL stores all variables in little
endian). 

According to what I've read, APL does strict right-to-left precedence,
which I find strange for a language so closely based on a mathmatical
formalism.

I think it's possible to write readable APL.

> > Although I have to admit, the Klingon FORTH+LISP interpeter makes me
> > raise an eyebrow... ;-) (see http://catb.org/retro/ )
> 
> Klingons don't raise an eyebrow, only Vulcan/Human hybrids do.

AFAIK there aren't any Klingons in my family.  I'd look terrible in
dreads. ;-)
> 
> Reading down that list, I still, after knowing him for twenty years,
> have no bloody idea what is the source of Eric's contempt for
> BASIC.

I can understand some of it... But blaming BASIC for the horrible code
written in it is like blaming English for the existance of
spammers. ;-)

I'm a bit of a fanboy for Eric Raymond, never met him.  The Yellow
book is one of the most important books on my shelf, and it is well
thumbed and falling apart.  :-)

When I get a few OS-9 projects finished, I wanna take a stab at
porting BWBASIC to OS-9.  As old-school BASICs go it's fairly decent.
If it can be compiled under CP/M, we should be able to compile it
under OS-9.  Unless, you know, somebody beats me to it. ;-)

Let me think, other languages off Eric's page.... I had FOCAL almost
compiled (wants floor()), but I'm not sure it actually worked
correctly.  That got lost in a hard drive crash. :-( The BCPL I-Code
engine compiled but didn't work right (not an endian issue, it works
fine on my 68010 UNIX box).  The others want ANSI C and/or
tool-libraries (LEX, YACC) we don't have under 6x09 OS-9.  ansifront
may fix some of the issues I had.

Willard
-- 
Willard Goosey  goosey at sdc.org
Socorro, New Mexico, USA
I search my heart and find Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night.
  -- R.E. Howard