Re: [dev] Interesting post about X11

Aled Gest <himselfe_AT_gmail.com> writes:

>> Scheme *should* be used for everything because at least one good macro
>> system has been designed for it.  Lisp macros can do arbitrary
>> computation at compile-time, and the Scheme macro system required by
>> R6RS provides all the power of Lisp macros *and* supports a
>> pattern-matching macro specification syntax for simple syntactic sugar.
>
> That doesn't explain *why* it should be used. Why should Scheme, or
> any other language with a higher level of abstraction and obfuscation,
> replace a relatively clean and unencumbered language like C?

  * Because manual memory management is a mess.

  * Because some data structures and algorithms (red-black trees, for a
    classic example) are extremely cumbersome in C compared to other
    languages.

  * Because adding on to C to fix its many small warts would be a mess
    (it can be less bad than C++ and still very bad).

Not all modern languages have to be towers of complexity: Scheme and SML
are two very simple and elegant languages, and even Haskell 98 can
really be kept in your head in its entirety.

Go is another example of a simple, yet modern language (built-in
tuples!), one that may appeal more the crowd on this mailing list.

-- 
\  Troels
/\ Henriksen