[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] Date Index Thread Index Search archive:
Date:Mon Jun 20 08:30:58 1994 
Subject:Re: Pop forms and syntax extension in Prolog and Dylan 
From:"A.Sloman" 
Volume-ID:940621.01 

> (BTW, it's a shame that Apple and others will make millions implementing
> Dylan on PCs,

Will they? It is very hard to get a new language to take off, and
generally it has less to do with the intrinsic merits of the language
than with other factors. (But I agree that wide availability can help.)

Would C++ have got anywhere without that name?

Around 1982 Basic was one of the widely used languages because it was
available on lots of little PCs. I wanted to call Pop-11 Superbasic, for
marketing reasons, because it combined the best features of Basic
(interactivity) with other good things. but nobody else agreed.

I don't know what we'd have called Poplog in that case!

> ....while Poplog Pop-11 isn't available on standard Windows
> PCs and Macs (without UNIX). More on that later. Sounds to me like folks
> at Integral Solutions aren't thinking BIG. I once heard the argument that
> there really isn't a big demand for a dynamic OOP system on PCs, but
> the great interest in Dylan seems to contradict that.)

I don't know that the interest is all that great. Despite the backing of
Apple, comp.lang.dylan only has about 2.5 times as many articles as
comp.lang.pop (at least reaching here), and a lot of them are complaints
about the design. E.g. here's a recurring theme.

Re: Why isn't Dylan syntax more like C/C++? ][ dolfi@hermes.zkm.de (Adolf Mathias)
Re: Why isn't Dylan syntax more like C/C++? ][ jeff@aiai.edinburgh.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Re: Why isn't Dylan syntax more like C/C++? ][ sandvik@newton.apple.com (Kent Sandvik)
Re: why isn't dylan syntax more l ][ Mike_Rossetti@dayna.com (Mike Rossetti)
Re: Why isn't Dylan syntax more like C/C++? ][ sdm7g@elvis.med.virginia.edu ("Steven D. Majewski")
Re: Why isn't Dylan syntax more like C/C++? ][ ramapo@crestone.ssd.kodak.com (Pete Hoch x39699)
Re: why isn't dylan syntax more l ][ hall@aplcenmp.apl.jhu.edu (Marty Hall)
Re: Why isn't Dylan syntax more like C++ ][ robin@cambridge.apple.com (Robin Mair)
Re: Why isn't Dylan syntax more like C/C++? ][ tesler@taurus.apple.com
Re: Why isn't Dylan syntax more like C/C++? ][ krk@oit.itd.umich.edu (Kenneth Knight)

Much of the content of those messages is like the discussions of Lisp
syntax vs Pop syntax. I gather Dylan has moved away from Lisp syntax
recently.

But if Dylan really does take off, maybe it will be a good language for
Pop lovers to move to? (I.e. better than Lisp or Scheme?) I have not
read about it in detail so I don't know what it is really like.

Aaron