From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: David Kastrup Subject: Re: [OT] Re: C++ *for Git* Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2007 21:11:51 +0200 Message-ID: <85bqbutszs.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> References: <46F5318A.4030103@krose.org> <877imishdp.fsf@catnip.gol.com> <46F55E03.2040404@krose.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: Miles Bader , Dmitry Kakurin , Git To: Kyle Rose X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Sat Sep 22 21:12:04 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.176.167]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1IZAOY-0000JC-Fj for gcvg-git-2@gmane.org; Sat, 22 Sep 2007 21:12:02 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754344AbXIVTL4 (ORCPT ); Sat, 22 Sep 2007 15:11:56 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751131AbXIVTL4 (ORCPT ); Sat, 22 Sep 2007 15:11:56 -0400 Received: from mail-in-03.arcor-online.net ([151.189.21.43]:47867 "EHLO mail-in-03.arcor-online.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751777AbXIVTLz (ORCPT ); Sat, 22 Sep 2007 15:11:55 -0400 Received: from mail-in-11-z2.arcor-online.net (mail-in-11-z2.arcor-online.net [151.189.8.28]) by mail-in-03.arcor-online.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1F3FD3028D9; Sat, 22 Sep 2007 21:11:54 +0200 (CEST) Received: from mail-in-05.arcor-online.net (mail-in-05.arcor-online.net [151.189.21.45]) by mail-in-11-z2.arcor-online.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0DD92346AC4; Sat, 22 Sep 2007 21:11:54 +0200 (CEST) Received: from lola.goethe.zz (dslb-084-061-012-197.pools.arcor-ip.net [84.61.12.197]) by mail-in-05.arcor-online.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id D71AD1C36CF; Sat, 22 Sep 2007 21:11:53 +0200 (CEST) Received: by lola.goethe.zz (Postfix, from userid 1002) id 754A41C22919; Sat, 22 Sep 2007 21:11:51 +0200 (CEST) In-Reply-To: <46F55E03.2040404@krose.org> (Kyle Rose's message of "Sat\, 22 Sep 2007 14\:25\:07 -0400") User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.1.50 (gnu/linux) X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.91.2/4359/Sat Sep 22 17:57:21 2007 on mail-in-05.arcor-online.net X-Virus-Status: Clean Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: Kyle Rose writes: > Miles Bader wrote: >> Of course, some of the most horrid unreadable source code I've ever seen >> is in one of git's competitors -- written in python.... > > Indeed. :-) > > At the office, people constantly badmouth Perl, which has some > admittedly evil syntax (especially around exception handling). Since Perl has agglomerated pretty much _every_ syntax, it is not surprising that evil syntax is included. > C++ is in the same category as Perl IMO: too easy to produce > unreadable code. Not quite. Perl gives you a hundred illegible ways to _say_ the same thing, C++ gives you a hundred illegible ways to _achieve_ the same thing, but using different means. > I like Ruby, except for the performance problems. Once they have > those worked out, Ruby will be "Perl done right." ;-) Ruby again is in the "throw every syntactical idiom I can think of together" ballpark. I find that a design mistake in Perl, a design mistake in Ruby, and even in C++ (Ada syntax for templates was just stupid, but at least there is no alternative syntax for it). That's one of the things I like about Lua: its syntax fits on one page in the reference manual. And the reference manual has a paper size of about A5. While the syntax for Lisp would probably fit in the margin, it does so at a cost in legibility. -- David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum