Bliss was Re: DEC program listing

[Paul Koning]

>>>>> "Huw" == Huw Davies <huw.davies at kerberos.davies.net.au> writes:

 Huw> On 15/08/2005, at 11:12 PM, Paul Koning wrote:

 >>>>>>> "Huw" == Huw Davies <huw.davies at kerberos.davies.net.au>
 >>>>>>> writes:
 >>
 Huw> I always wonder why people think BLISS is such a bad language. I
 Huw> know that many people inside DEC don't like it as they were
 Huw> forced to use it as the new "standard" language but personally
 Huw> BLISS is one of my favorites.
 >>  Because it is so easy to write bugs with it, and so hard to find
 >> them.

 Huw> I agree that missing .'s did cause some problems but I recall
 Huw> having to debug far fewer missing .'s compared to missing equal
 Huw> signs in c. The number of times I've written if (a = b) when I
 Huw> mean if (a == b) is the main reason I refuse to write c programs
 Huw> (not even for money).

Right, but at least C compilers can be asked to warn you about that.

 >> The use of . is quite warped and utterly against high level
 >> language principles.  (The only thing that even comes close is
 >> FORTH.)

 Huw> Well the everything is an lvalue is different, but in some ways
 Huw> it's easier to explain i := .i + 1 to new programmers than i :=
 Huw> i + 1 where the context of i changes (it's even worse in FORTRAN
 Huw> where the syntax is i = i + 1 given that FORTRAN was written for
 Huw> maths/physics types....

Yes, if a novice programmer were to learn Bliss as the first language,
I suppose the risk is much reduced.  But that never happens, so it
doesn't help.

	paul