Path: news.cs.au.dk!news.net.uni-c.dk!sunsite.auc.dk!twister.sunsite.auc.dk.POSTED!not-for-mail Sender: eernst@borg.cs.auc.dk Newsgroups: comp.lang.beta Subject: Re: Beta compiler for win32 References: <20000513221646.3288.qmail@noatun.mjolner.dk> From: Erik Ernst Message-ID: Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Aalborg, Denmark Lines: 896 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0803 (Gnus v5.8.3) Emacs/20.5 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 13:33:12 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 130.225.194.125 X-Trace: twister.sunsite.auc.dk 959607192 130.225.194.125 (Mon, 29 May 2000 15:33:12 MET DST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 15:33:12 MET DST Xref: news.cs.au.dk comp.lang.beta:12357 >>>>> "Sascha" == Sascha Kimmel writes: Here I go, responding to a pretty old message - I guess that's me.. >> From: eernst@cs.auc.dk [mailto:eernst@cs.auc.dk] >> >> >>>>> "Sascha" == Sascha Kimmel writes: Sascha> [..] the most important aspect of BETA is the platform Sascha> [..] and [..] GUI independence. >> >> [..] it is a seriously cool language [..] few but powerful >> abstraction mechanisms [..] Sascha> But the problem is that many ppl like to use languages Sascha> which they've ever been working with? Why not those Sascha> "shopping cart" languages like C(++)? It's been extend Sascha> again and again, whereas BETA simplifies everything by Sascha> abstract concepts. But for many users it's too difficult Sascha> to understand the simplicity of the BETA structure Sascha> therefore not using it... I believe that people have lots of very legitimate reasons to choose, e.g., C++ (availability of programmers/tools/books, and perhaps an OO assembler is _actually_ just the right tool for one or two projects); but then again, they probably also have lots of less enlightened reasons ("I will _never_ learn to write '(#' and '->'!", "Who needs general block structure and true closures anyway?", and "Virtual classes are hard to understand and even less useful!") I think the challenge is to spot the "bad" reasons whenever somebody expresses them, and try to find out what they would really think about life, death, and everything if certain misconceptions were just slightly revised.. :-) >> However, it would be very nice if Sun/ Sascha> Sun? The million-dollar-marketing company that used its Sascha> potential to bring Java (formerly known as Oak) to the Sascha> world. Exactly. Many things are worse than Java, and programmers at large 22:16:58 poppel ~>undankey 17:40:39 poppel ~>dankey 17:44:17 poppel ~>cd Mail 21:08:06 poppel ~/Mail>c ar-sent From nobody Thu Nov 11 18:59:50 1999 Sender: eernst@poppel.cs.auc.dk To: teknik@cs.auc.dk Subject: Re: restore References: <38296BF6.11993CF7@cs.auc.dk> From: Erik Ernst Date: 11 Nov 1999 18:59:46 +0100 In-Reply-To: Lars Stricker's message of "Wed, 10 Nov 1999 13:58:30 +0100" Message-ID: Lines: 40 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.6.45/Emacs 20.3 >>>>> "Lars" == Lars Stricker writes: Hejsa, jeg har lige i dette øjeblik fået mail til at virke! Så.. Lars> Hej Dit b<81>ånd ligger nu i et restore-dir i dit Lars> hjemmekatalog. Tak for det! Jeg har fundet min afhandling og skrevet den ud, så den værste panik er ovre. :) ....skipping... To: Maibrit Georg 21:14:31 poppel ~>cd misc 21:21:34 poppel ~/misc>cd midtbank/ 11:27:21 poppel ~>c Mail/ar-sent From nobody Thu Nov 11 18:59:50 1999 Sender: eernst@poppel.cs.auc.dk To: teknik@cs.auc.dk Subject: Re: restore References: <38296BF6.11993CF7@cs.auc.dk> From: Erik Ernst Date: 11 Nov 1999 18:59:46 +0100 In-Reply-To: Lars Stricker's message of "Wed, 10 Nov 1999 13:58:30 +0100" Message-ID: Lines: 40 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.6.45/Emacs 20.3 >>>>> "Lars" == Lars Stricker writes: Hejsa, jeg har lige i dette øjeblik fået mail til at virke! Så.. Lars> Hej Dit b<81>ånd ligger nu i et restore-dir i dit Lars> hjemmekatalog. Tak for det! Jeg har fundet min afhandling og skrevet den ud, så den værste panik er ovre. :) ....skipping... From nobody Mon May 29 15:11:22 2000 Sender: eernst@borg.cs.auc.dk To: "Sascha Kimmel" Subject: Re: Beta compiler for win32 References: <20000513221646.3288.qmail@noatun.mjolner.dk> From: Erik Ernst Date: 29 May 2000 15:11:22 +0200 In-Reply-To: "Sascha Kimmel"'s message of "13 May 2000 22:16:46 -0000" Message-ID: Lines: 137 Date: 29 May 2000 15:11:22 +0200 In-Reply-To: "Sascha Kimmel"'s message of "13 May 2000 22:16:46 -0000" Message-ID: Lines: 137 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0803 (Gnus v5.8.3) Emacs/20.5 >>>>> "Sascha" == Sascha Kimmel writes: Here I go, responding to a pretty old message - I guess that's me.. >> From: eernst@cs.auc.dk [mailto:eernst@cs.auc.dk] >> >> >>>>> "Sascha" == Sascha Kimmel writes: Sascha> [..] the most important aspect of BETA is the platform Sascha> [..] and [..] GUI independence. >> >> [..] it is a seriously cool language [..] few but powerful >> abstraction mechanisms [..] Sascha> But the problem is that many ppl like to use languages Sascha> which they've ever been working with? Why not those Sascha> "shopping cart" languages like C(++)? It's been extend Sascha> again and again, whereas BETA simplifies everything by Sascha> abstract concepts. But for many users it's too difficult Sascha> to understand the simplicity of the BETA structure Sascha> therefore not using it... I believe that people have lots of very legitimate reasons to choose, e.g., C++ (availability of programmers/tools/books, and perhaps an OO assembler is _actually_ just the right tool for one or two projects); but then again, they probably also have lots of less enlightened reasons ("I will _never_ learn to write '(#' and '->'!", "Who needs general block structure and true closures anyway?", and "Virtual classes are hard to understand and even less useful!") I think the challenge is to spot the "bad" reasons whenever somebody expresses them, and try to find out what they would really think about life, death, and everything if certain misconceptions were just slightly revised.. :-) >> However, it would be very nice if Sun/ Sascha> Sun? The million-dollar-marketing company that used its Sascha> potential to bring Java (formerly known as Oak) to the Sascha> world. Exactly. Many things are worse than Java, and programmers at large seem to _insist_ on having syntax like while(*q++=*p++) { i+=(int)&j; ..} I'm actually pleased that the C-crowd is moving forward in history, it does make another (incomparable) kind of difference if a few million people take one step forward, compared with a few thousand people taking a thousand steps forward. We need both! Still, it would be nice if more people were willing to try even more "unusual" things. One of the promising options, as far as I can see, is the collaborative, open source based development of alternatives to the established behemoths. Because of the vast resources that might potentially be put into such projects, it is actually possible to get things started that would never be realistic if somebody had tried to make money on it by hiring a lot of programmers. Then again, I'm not sure such a topic as language design is the perfect example of such a project. It is more likely to be tools and libraries, and perhaps language design _adjustments_. Somehow, the holistic point of view seems to indespensable in certain areas. Available source code for compilers might also help, because a new compiler might reuse the back-end (and perhaps much of the "middle-end") from an existing compiler. VROOOMMM, and there's a compiler for your new language! 22:16:58 poppel ~>undankey 17:40:39 poppel ~>dankey 17:44:17 poppel ~>cd Mail 21:08:06 poppel ~/Mail>c ar-sent From nobody Thu Nov 11 18:59:50 1999 Sender: eernst@poppel.cs.auc.dk To: teknik@cs.auc.dk Subject: Re: restore References: <38296BF6.11993CF7@cs.auc.dk> From: Erik Ernst Date: 11 Nov 1999 18:59:46 +0100 In-Reply-To: Lars Stricker's message of "Wed, 10 Nov 1999 13:58:30 +0100" Message-ID: Lines: 40 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.6.45/Emacs 20.3 >>>>> "Lars" == Lars Stricker writes: Hejsa, jeg har lige i dette øjeblik fået mail til at virke! Så.. Lars> Hej Dit b<81>ånd ligger nu i et restore-dir i dit Lars> hjemmekatalog. Tak for det! Jeg har fundet min afhandling og skrevet den ud, så den værste panik er ovre. :) ....skipping... To: Maibrit Georg 21:14:31 poppel ~>cd misc 21:21:34 poppel ~/misc>cd midtbank/ 11:27:21 poppel ~>c Mail/ar-sent From nobody Thu Nov 11 18:59:50 1999 Sender: eernst@poppel.cs.auc.dk To: teknik@cs.auc.dk Subject: Re: restore References: <38296BF6.11993CF7@cs.auc.dk> From: Erik Ernst Date: 11 Nov 1999 18:59:46 +0100 In-Reply-To: Lars Stricker's message of "Wed, 10 Nov 1999 13:58:30 +0100" Message-ID: Lines: 40 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.6.45/Emacs 20.3 >>>>> "Lars" == Lars Stricker writes: Hejsa, jeg har lige i dette øjeblik fået mail til at virke! Så.. Lars> Hej Dit b<81>ånd ligger nu i et restore-dir i dit Lars> hjemmekatalog. Tak for det! Jeg har fundet min afhandling og skrevet den ud, så den værste panik er ovre. :) ....skipping... From nobody Mon May 29 15:11:22 2000 Sender: eernst@borg.cs.auc.dk To: "Sascha Kimmel" Subject: Re: Beta compiler for win32 References: <20000513221646.3288.qmail@noatun.mjolner.dk> From: Erik Ernst Date: 29 May 2000 15:11:22 +0200 In-Reply-To: "Sascha Kimmel"'s message of "13 May 2000 22:16:46 -0000" Message-ID: Lines: 137 Date: 29 May 2000 15:11:22 +0200 In-Reply-To: "Sascha Kimmel"'s message of "13 May 2000 22:16:46 -0000" Message-ID: Lines: 137 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0803 (Gnus v5.8.3) Emacs/20.5 >>>>> "Sascha" == Sascha Kimmel writes: Here I go, responding to a pretty old message - I guess that's me.. >> From: eernst@cs.auc.dk [mailto:eernst@cs.auc.dk] >> >> >>>>> "Sascha" == Sascha Kimmel writes: Sascha> [..] the most important aspect of BETA is the platform Sascha> [..] and [..] GUI independence. >> >> [..] it is a seriously cool language [..] few but powerful >> abstraction mechanisms [..] Sascha> But the problem is that many ppl like to use languages Sascha> which they've ever been working with? Why not those Sascha> "shopping cart" languages like C(++)? It's been extend Sascha> again and again, whereas BETA simplifies everything by Sascha> abstract concepts. But for many users it's too difficult Sascha> to understand the simplicity of the BETA structure Sascha> therefore not using it... I believe that people have lots of very legitimate reasons to choose, e.g., C++ (availability of programmers/tools/books, and perhaps an OO assembler is _actually_ just the right tool for one or two projects); but then again, they probably also have lots of less enlightened reasons ("I will _never_ learn to write '(#' and '->'!", "Who needs general block structure and true closures anyway?", and "Virtual classes are hard to understand and even less useful!") I think the challenge is to spot the "bad" reasons whenever somebody expresses them, and try to find out what they would really think about life, death, and everything if certain misconceptions were just slightly revised.. :-) >> However, it would be very nice if Sun/ Sascha> Sun? The million-dollar-marketing company that used its Sascha> potential to bring Java (formerly known as Oak) to the Sascha> world. Exactly. Many things are worse than Java, and programmers at large seem to _insist_ on having syntax like while(*q++=*p++) { i+=(int)&j; ..} I'm actually pleased that the C-crowd is moving forward in history, it does make another (incomparable) kind of difference if a few million people take one step forward, compared with a few thousand people taking a thousand steps forward. We need both! Still, it would be nice if more people were willing to try even more "unusual" things. One of the promising options, as far as I can see, is the collaborative, open source based development of alternatives to the established behemoths. Because of the vast resources that might potentially be put into such projects, it is actually possible to get things started that would never be realistic if somebody had tried to make money on it by hiring a lot of programmers. Then again, I'm not sure such a topic as language design is the perfect example of such a project. It is more likely to be tools and libraries, and perhaps language design _adjustments_. Somehow, the holistic point of view seems to indespensable in certain areas. Available source code for compilers might also help, because a new compiler might reuse the back-end (and perhaps much of the "middle-end") from an existing compiler. VROOOMMM, and there's a compiler for your new language! Sascha> However Mjolner does not have such potential, but Sascha> does this mean that BETA is worse than Java? I don't Sascha> think so! I don't think so, either, but it does mean that Java has a level of library/tool/book/course/community/conference/.. support which makes Java a "better language than it is", whereas BETA has to lure people based on a more purely language design oriented evaluation. Of course, if good language design enables elegant libraries then the two areas will interact, but in some respects it is still hard to compensate for the lack of a billion dollar budget. >> IBM/ Sascha> Big Blue? Maybe - but do they even KNOW BETA? ;) I think they do. At international conferences such as ECOOP and OOPSLA, people in general know something about BETA, even though they tend to say "It's definitely interesting, but at some point it got so weird that I gave up ... now, where did you put that CDROM?" I'm sure there are numerous people in various parts of IBM with more-than-buzzword knowledge of BETA. 22:16:58 poppel ~>undankey 17:40:39 poppel ~>dankey 17:44:17 poppel ~>cd Mail 21:08:06 poppel ~/Mail>c ar-sent From nobody Thu Nov 11 18:59:50 1999 Sender: eernst@poppel.cs.auc.dk To: teknik@cs.auc.dk Subject: Re: restore References: <38296BF6.11993CF7@cs.auc.dk> From: Erik Ernst Date: 11 Nov 1999 18:59:46 +0100 In-Reply-To: Lars Stricker's message of "Wed, 10 Nov 1999 13:58:30 +0100" Message-ID: Lines: 40 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.6.45/Emacs 20.3 >>>>> "Lars" == Lars Stricker writes: Hejsa, jeg har lige i dette øjeblik fået mail til at virke! Så.. Lars> Hej Dit b<81>ånd ligger nu i et restore-dir i dit Lars> hjemmekatalog. Tak for det! Jeg har fundet min afhandling og skrevet den ud, så den værste panik er ovre. :) ....skipping... To: Maibrit Georg 21:14:31 poppel ~>cd misc 21:21:34 poppel ~/misc>cd midtbank/ 11:27:21 poppel ~>c Mail/ar-sent From nobody Thu Nov 11 18:59:50 1999 Sender: eernst@poppel.cs.auc.dk To: teknik@cs.auc.dk Subject: Re: restore References: <38296BF6.11993CF7@cs.auc.dk> From: Erik Ernst Date: 11 Nov 1999 18:59:46 +0100 In-Reply-To: Lars Stricker's message of "Wed, 10 Nov 1999 13:58:30 +0100" Message-ID: Lines: 40 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.6.45/Emacs 20.3 >>>>> "Lars" == Lars Stricker writes: Hejsa, jeg har lige i dette øjeblik fået mail til at virke! Så.. Lars> Hej Dit b<81>ånd ligger nu i et restore-dir i dit Lars> hjemmekatalog. Tak for det! Jeg har fundet min afhandling og skrevet den ud, så den værste panik er ovre. :) ....skipping... From nobody Mon May 29 15:11:22 2000 Sender: eernst@borg.cs.auc.dk To: "Sascha Kimmel" Subject: Re: Beta compiler for win32 References: <20000513221646.3288.qmail@noatun.mjolner.dk> From: Erik Ernst Date: 29 May 2000 15:11:22 +0200 In-Reply-To: "Sascha Kimmel"'s message of "13 May 2000 22:16:46 -0000" Message-ID: Lines: 137 Date: 29 May 2000 15:11:22 +0200 In-Reply-To: "Sascha Kimmel"'s message of "13 May 2000 22:16:46 -0000" Message-ID: Lines: 137 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0803 (Gnus v5.8.3) Emacs/20.5 >>>>> "Sascha" == Sascha Kimmel writes: Here I go, responding to a pretty old message - I guess that's me.. >> From: eernst@cs.auc.dk [mailto:eernst@cs.auc.dk] >> >> >>>>> "Sascha" == Sascha Kimmel writes: Sascha> [..] the most important aspect of BETA is the platform Sascha> [..] and [..] GUI independence. >> >> [..] it is a seriously cool language [..] few but powerful >> abstraction mechanisms [..] Sascha> But the problem is that many ppl like to use languages Sascha> which they've ever been working with? Why not those Sascha> "shopping cart" languages like C(++)? It's been extend Sascha> again and again, whereas BETA simplifies everything by Sascha> abstract concepts. But for many users it's too difficult Sascha> to understand the simplicity of the BETA structure Sascha> therefore not using it... I believe that people have lots of very legitimate reasons to choose, e.g., C++ (availability of programmers/tools/books, and perhaps an OO assembler is _actually_ just the right tool for one or two projects); but then again, they probably also have lots of less enlightened reasons ("I will _never_ learn to write '(#' and '->'!", "Who needs general block structure and true closures anyway?", and "Virtual classes are hard to understand and even less useful!") I think the challenge is to spot the "bad" reasons whenever somebody expresses them, and try to find out what they would really think about life, death, and everything if certain misconceptions were just slightly revised.. :-) >> However, it would be very nice if Sun/ Sascha> Sun? The million-dollar-marketing company that used its Sascha> potential to bring Java (formerly known as Oak) to the Sascha> world. Exactly. Many things are worse than Java, and programmers at large seem to _insist_ on having syntax like while(*q++=*p++) { i+=(int)&j; ..} I'm actually pleased that the C-crowd is moving forward in history, it does make another (incomparable) kind of difference if a few million people take one step forward, compared with a few thousand people taking a thousand steps forward. We need both! Still, it would be nice if more people were willing to try even more "unusual" things. One of the promising options, as far as I can see, is the collaborative, open source based development of alternatives to the established behemoths. Because of the vast resources that might potentially be put into such projects, it is actually possible to get things started that would never be realistic if somebody had tried to make money on it by hiring a lot of programmers. Then again, I'm not sure such a topic as language design is the perfect example of such a project. It is more likely to be tools and libraries, and perhaps language design _adjustments_. Somehow, the holistic point of view seems to indespensable in certain areas. Available source code for compilers might also help, because a new compiler might reuse the back-end (and perhaps much of the "middle-end") from an existing compiler. VROOOMMM, and there's a compiler for your new language! Sascha> However Mjolner does not have such potential, but Sascha> does this mean that BETA is worse than Java? I don't Sascha> think so! I don't think so, either, but it does mean that Java has a level of library/tool/book/course/community/conference/.. support which makes Java a "better language than it is", whereas BETA has to lure people based on a more purely language design oriented evaluation. Of course, if good language design enables elegant libraries then the two areas will interact, but in some respects it is still hard to compensate for the lack of a billion dollar budget. >> IBM/ Sascha> Big Blue? Maybe - but do they even KNOW BETA? ;) I think they do. At international conferences such as ECOOP and OOPSLA, people in general know something about BETA, even though they tend to say "It's definitely interesting, but at some point it got so weird that I gave up ... now, where did you put that CDROM?" I'm sure there are numerous people in various parts of IBM with more-than-buzzword knowledge of BETA. >> (or-even-)Microsoft would put Sascha> Visual BETA Enterprise Edition ;D "Where do you want to type '(#' and '->' today?" ;-) >> a few thousand man-years into the further development of tools and >> libraries, too. Sascha> It's simply that problem that either no one is listening Sascha> or that no one is interested. It's a fact. Oh, sometimes a single person _is_ listening. As long as "most people" just keep out their antennas to ensure that they follow the crowd as closely as possible (i.e., forever), it just does not make sense to try to insist on capturing the world all at once.. >> And if a lot more people would use it.. :-) Sascha> IMO BETA should go mainstream. What would BETA be, then? BETA? 22:16:58 poppel ~>undankey 17:40:39 poppel ~>dankey 17:44:17 poppel ~>cd Mail 21:08:06 poppel ~/Mail>c ar-sent From nobody Thu Nov 11 18:59:50 1999 Sender: eernst@poppel.cs.auc.dk To: teknik@cs.auc.dk Subject: Re: restore References: <38296BF6.11993CF7@cs.auc.dk> From: Erik Ernst Date: 11 Nov 1999 18:59:46 +0100 In-Reply-To: Lars Stricker's message of "Wed, 10 Nov 1999 13:58:30 +0100" Message-ID: Lines: 40 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.6.45/Emacs 20.3 >>>>> "Lars" == Lars Stricker writes: Hejsa, jeg har lige i dette øjeblik fået mail til at virke! Så.. Lars> Hej Dit b<81>ånd ligger nu i et restore-dir i dit Lars> hjemmekatalog. Tak for det! Jeg har fundet min afhandling og skrevet den ud, så den værste panik er ovre. :) ....skipping... To: Maibrit Georg 21:14:31 poppel ~>cd misc 21:21:34 poppel ~/misc>cd midtbank/ 11:27:21 poppel ~>c Mail/ar-sent From nobody Thu Nov 11 18:59:50 1999 Sender: eernst@poppel.cs.auc.dk To: teknik@cs.auc.dk Subject: Re: restore References: <38296BF6.11993CF7@cs.auc.dk> From: Erik Ernst Date: 11 Nov 1999 18:59:46 +0100 In-Reply-To: Lars Stricker's message of "Wed, 10 Nov 1999 13:58:30 +0100" Message-ID: Lines: 40 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.6.45/Emacs 20.3 >>>>> "Lars" == Lars Stricker writes: Hejsa, jeg har lige i dette øjeblik fået mail til at virke! Så.. Lars> Hej Dit b<81>ånd ligger nu i et restore-dir i dit Lars> hjemmekatalog. Tak for det! Jeg har fundet min afhandling og skrevet den ud, så den værste panik er ovre. :) ....skipping... From nobody Mon May 29 15:11:22 2000 Sender: eernst@borg.cs.auc.dk To: "Sascha Kimmel" Subject: Re: Beta compiler for win32 References: <20000513221646.3288.qmail@noatun.mjolner.dk> From: Erik Ernst Date: 29 May 2000 15:11:22 +0200 In-Reply-To: "Sascha Kimmel"'s message of "13 May 2000 22:16:46 -0000" Message-ID: Lines: 137 Date: 29 May 2000 15:11:22 +0200 In-Reply-To: "Sascha Kimmel"'s message of "13 May 2000 22:16:46 -0000" Message-ID: Lines: 137 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0803 (Gnus v5.8.3) Emacs/20.5 >>>>> "Sascha" == Sascha Kimmel writes: Here I go, responding to a pretty old message - I guess that's me.. >> From: eernst@cs.auc.dk [mailto:eernst@cs.auc.dk] >> >> >>>>> "Sascha" == Sascha Kimmel writes: Sascha> [..] the most important aspect of BETA is the platform Sascha> [..] and [..] GUI independence. >> >> [..] it is a seriously cool language [..] few but powerful >> abstraction mechanisms [..] Sascha> But the problem is that many ppl like to use languages Sascha> which they've ever been working with? Why not those Sascha> "shopping cart" languages like C(++)? It's been extend Sascha> again and again, whereas BETA simplifies everything by Sascha> abstract concepts. But for many users it's too difficult Sascha> to understand the simplicity of the BETA structure Sascha> therefore not using it... I believe that people have lots of very legitimate reasons to choose, e.g., C++ (availability of programmers/tools/books, and perhaps an OO assembler is _actually_ just the right tool for one or two projects); but then again, they probably also have lots of less enlightened reasons ("I will _never_ learn to write '(#' and '->'!", "Who needs general block structure and true closures anyway?", and "Virtual classes are hard to understand and even less useful!") I think the challenge is to spot the "bad" reasons whenever somebody expresses them, and try to find out what they would really think about life, death, and everything if certain misconceptions were just slightly revised.. :-) >> However, it would be very nice if Sun/ Sascha> Sun? The million-dollar-marketing company that used its Sascha> potential to bring Java (formerly known as Oak) to the Sascha> world. Exactly. Many things are worse than Java, and programmers at large seem to _insist_ on having syntax like while(*q++=*p++) { i+=(int)&j; ..} I'm actually pleased that the C-crowd is moving forward in history, it does make another (incomparable) kind of difference if a few million people take one step forward, compared with a few thousand people taking a thousand steps forward. We need both! Still, it would be nice if more people were willing to try even more "unusual" things. One of the promising options, as far as I can see, is the collaborative, open source based development of alternatives to the established behemoths. Because of the vast resources that might potentially be put into such projects, it is actually possible to get things started that would never be realistic if somebody had tried to make money on it by hiring a lot of programmers. Then again, I'm not sure such a topic as language design is the perfect example of such a project. It is more likely to be tools and libraries, and perhaps language design _adjustments_. Somehow, the holistic point of view seems to indespensable in certain areas. Available source code for compilers might also help, because a new compiler might reuse the back-end (and perhaps much of the "middle-end") from an existing compiler. VROOOMMM, and there's a compiler for your new language! Sascha> However Mjolner does not have such potential, but Sascha> does this mean that BETA is worse than Java? I don't Sascha> think so! I don't think so, either, but it does mean that Java has a level of library/tool/book/course/community/conference/.. support which makes Java a "better language than it is", whereas BETA has to lure people based on a more purely language design oriented evaluation. Of course, if good language design enables elegant libraries then the two areas will interact, but in some respects it is still hard to compensate for the lack of a billion dollar budget. >> IBM/ Sascha> Big Blue? Maybe - but do they even KNOW BETA? ;) I think they do. At international conferences such as ECOOP and OOPSLA, people in general know something about BETA, even though they tend to say "It's definitely interesting, but at some point it got so weird that I gave up ... now, where did you put that CDROM?" I'm sure there are numerous people in various parts of IBM with more-than-buzzword knowledge of BETA. >> (or-even-)Microsoft would put Sascha> Visual BETA Enterprise Edition ;D "Where do you want to type '(#' and '->' today?" ;-) >> a few thousand man-years into the further development of tools and >> libraries, too. Sascha> It's simply that problem that either no one is listening Sascha> or that no one is interested. It's a fact. Oh, sometimes a single person _is_ listening. As long as "most people" just keep out their antennas to ensure that they follow the crowd as closely as possible (i.e., forever), it just does not make sense to try to insist on capturing the world all at once.. >> And if a lot more people would use it.. :-) Sascha> IMO BETA should go mainstream. What would BETA be, then? BETA? In a way, it might be the same thing as I was saying, i.e., it would be nice if some big player would show some concrete interest in the development of and support for BETA programming (oh, yeah, and gbeta, too :-) Sascha> As long as BETA is simply an "elité" language it won't be Sascha> used much. In today's times you need such features as Sascha> Internet (I don't mean only simple sockets!!), Multimedia Sascha> and much more - it's not only programmers at some Sascha> universities that want to implement their algorithms - Sascha> this way BETA will not be used by the "usual" programmer. It's probably very important to work in the direction of support for various standard component architectures, because the binary system composition model makes it more convenient to use "special" languages together with lots of shrink-wrapped, standard functionality. This will also allow people to make gradual, graceful shifts from one set of technologies to another one. Not that this is a new idea, of course :) regards, -- Erik Ernst eernst@cs.auc.dk Department of Computer Science, University of Aalborg, Denmark