OpenEuphoria

Re: A question about certain language features

• Posted by tone.skoda at siol.net Feb 11, 2002
• 583 views

I was not really responding to you but generally writing what I feel about
Euphoria.
Your question should really be answered by Robert Craig, richtig?
I do not know why he did it the way he did.

But I think most of the the things are the way they are for simplicity (no
goto, no local constants, no initialization of variables when declared...)
and for clear programming style.

If Euphoria had some ugly characters like $, &, *, {,} it would become ...
not what it is now.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ed Davis" <ed_davis2 at yahoo.com>
To: "EUforum" <EUforum at topica.com>
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2002 11:39 PM
Subject: RE: A question about certain language features


>
> tone.skoda at siol.net wrote:
> > Euphoria is almost perfect programming language as it is now.
> > It only needs a simple OOP addition.
> > Of course, debuger and editor with IDE also are missing, but that is not
> > part of language itself.
>
> I appreciate your feelings, but I'm not sure what this has
> to do with my original message/questions?
>
> > Why call by reference, becuase VB has it?
>
> I've never used VB.  I have used C, C++, Pascal, Modula 2
> and Oberon, all of which feature call by reference (well, in
> C you have to use pointers, but it amounts to the same thing
> in actual use).
>
> > It is complicated feature, I don't need it.
>
> I am happy for you.  However, that was not the point.  I was
> simply wondering why it was not included.  I've read that
> functional languages don't allow call by reference because
> of the side effect factor.  But they also (I'm not a
> functional language expert - this is based on my readings of
> the subject) don't allow assignment to global variables from
> a subroutine, because it is a also a side effect.  So, I'm
> simply wandering why Euphoria's author choose not to allow
> call by reference.  Is it a style issue, a good programming
> issue, is he trying to emulate some tenet of functional
> programming, etc.
>
> > I don't need goto either.
>
> Good for you. But I did not ask about goto.
>
> > Variables can not be initialized when declared, that is ok.
>
> That may be.  But I did not ask if it was 'ok', I simply
> asked why it is not allowed.  Is initializing a variable
> when it is declared a 'bad thing'?  It is supported in other
> languages I have used, and so I was wondering why not in
> Euphoria.
>
> > Local constants are really not needed.
>
> True.  But again, I simply asked why the feature was not
> supported.
>
> > Things I most like with Euphoria: simplicity, sequences, type checking,
> > no
> > waiting for compilation, speed...
>
> Again, I am glad you like it, I like Euphoria also.  But
> that is not what I was asking about.
>
> And to make sure I'm clear - I'm not asking for these
> features to be added to Euphoria.
>
> For instance, I can see why the author would not choose to
> add a goto to Euphoria.  Many programmers realize that
> goto's, used unwisely, can cause hard to
> follow/maintain/prove correct code.
>
> I'm simply trying to understand if in general the author
> feels that call by reference, variable initialization on
> declaration, and locally declared Euphoria constants are bad
> things, or would lead to poor programming style, or what
> have you.
>
> If I know why these things are not allowed, who knows,
> perhaps I will adopt this style for my own use in the other
> languages I program in.
>
>
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Ed Davis" <ed_davis2 at yahoo.com>
> > To: "EUforum" <EUforum at topica.com>
> > Sent: Monday, February 11, 2002 5:39 PM
> > Subject: A question about certain language features
> >
> >
> > > I've been reading the Euphoria documentation, and I have a
> > > few questions about certain features of the language.
> > >
> > > I assume that the author made certain choices because he
> > > felt that this encouraged a better way of programming.  I
> > > don't want to start (or continue) an argument about this per
> > > se, but I would like to try and understand the reasoning.
> > > For instance, without debating their merit, I can understand
> > > the author leaving out the goto statement, as abuse of goto
> > > can lead to hard-to-read and hard-to-prove-correct code.  Of
> > > course, the converse is possibly true too.
> > >
> > > The features I have questions about as to why there were
> > > implemented that way are:
> > >
> > > 1) Variables can not be initialized when declared, but
> > > rather, must be initialized via an assignment statement.
> > > Based on other languages, this seems like one of those
> > > convenience type issues.  Is there some programming
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