Path: news.cs.au.dk!news.net.uni-c.dk!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.cwix.com!skynet.be!poster!not-for-mail From: Atle Newsgroups: comp.lang.beta Subject: Re: More newbie: suspend Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2000 14:12:18 -0100 Organization: Belgacom Skynet SA/NV Lines: 17 Message-ID: <394B9552.8A5650BA@skynet.be> References: <39368951.3F2E3D5D@skynet.be> NNTP-Posting-Host: dialup60.charleroi.skynet.be Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news0.skynet.be 961243672 32045 195.238.7.60 (17 Jun 2000 12:07:52 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@skynet.be NNTP-Posting-Date: 17 Jun 2000 12:07:52 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.51 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.2.5-15 i686) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: news.cs.au.dk comp.lang.beta:12412 Flemming Gram Christensen wrote: > > Can anyone explain the difference between the Icon suspend and the BETA? It seems that they are very much the same. I say this with a LOT of reservations, though. Both are actually used to program generators, I didn't know that generators were so important, it seems that Beta is the prime programming language supporting them, and that the little I have seen of this have been more by 'accident' than anything else. People who do not know either of Beta or Icon will probably not see the point of having generators at all, but if they get another name like 'corresponding to ProLog backtracking' then they see the usefulness. I have a feeling that this way of programming is a little in the 'background' on the list, though. Are these aspects of the language are considered less important? Or is it just that people prefer making control flow explicit, even though a more 'declarative' approach would be more intuitive? If this doesn't catch on because people don't like it, what could be done to make it more attractive? > I feel I need to gain experience with precisely that kind of programming, so if a few other newbies as well would like to do a small 'coroutine project' with me, it would be great - I wouldn't want to bore the experienced people with this, only when I get stuck :-) How about it, any newbies out there who would like to do some small coroutine/generator/backtracking project to gain some insight?