OpenEuphoria

Re: Ideas for next Eu

• Posted by simulat <simulat at INTERGATE.BC.CA> Nov 07, 1999
• 836 views

Hi
Irv said:

> Martin's post, while certainly polite, seems most likely a skillful troll.
> I rather enjoyed it, in fact. If I am wrong, and he was serious, then I
> would
> really like to see examples of this "fluid" language, and how it would
make
> programming easier.
>
> Irv

I'm sorry to disappoint you Irv, but my posting was serious.

I've already given an example of a "fluid" language (in the sense I'm
talking about). Level 1 BASIC that ran (still does) on a TRS80 Model 1. It
had lots of limitations, but it you didn't have to worry about whether a
variable was local or global. They were all global. That language was almost
completely unstructured, compared to say, C. I wrote a lot of spaghetti
code. Eventually I imposed my own structure by developing a structured
programming style. I wrote some pretty interesting software on that system,
and some of it (a halftone exposure calculator) is still in daily use
(though translated to GWBasic).

Eventually I developed my own system for creating local variables and
implemented it whenever I needed it. I had no trouble with having variables
global as a default. And this was on a system where the range of variable
names was very small.

The problem with primitive languages wasn't how you used variables, it was
just the lack of memory, and the limits of crude graphics that made me want
to move on.

Euphoria is an excellent example of a fluid language, even if I do think it
could loosen up a bit. It's only got a few data types, you can make more if
you want, and as Lucius demonstrated, it's easy to make variables global if
you want. And sequences must be one of the most flexible data types going.

I'm self educated a computerist. I've tried hard, on several occasions to
master C. I could get programs going, but I was never comfortable with it.
The problem was the infinite data types, combined with the pointer based
parameter passing. The simplest task seemed complicated and obscure by the
time it was done.

Now that stuff is what I call programming overhead. It may be worth the
trouble in some circumstances, but it is an expense. The question is "When
is the benefit worth the expense?" The point I make is that in lots of
circumstances the programming overhead has no benefit and is quite
expensive. What's the justification for the expense in those circumstances?

Many of us have commented on what a pleasure Euphoria is to use. For me, it
lets me do whatever I want with very little "expense". It's got this great
international community extending it in all kinds of directions. It's one of
the few things in the world to live up to it's name. I think that fluidity
is the way to go.

So why is "global" equated with "ugly"?

And how does forcing people to do things that aren't necessary, but are
error prone, make programming easier?

Bye
Martin