From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 4805 invoked from network); 2 Jan 2022 10:53:23 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (45.79.103.53) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 2 Jan 2022 10:53:23 -0000 Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 7A9F59D00A; Sun, 2 Jan 2022 20:53:17 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 536109CFE0; Sun, 2 Jan 2022 20:52:49 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id BF0EE9CF06; Sun, 2 Jan 2022 20:52:46 +1000 (AEST) X-Greylist: delayed 371 seconds by postgrey-1.36 at minnie.tuhs.org; Sun, 02 Jan 2022 20:52:46 AEST Received: from marmaro.de (marmaro.de [176.28.23.198]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 347869CE58 for ; Sun, 2 Jan 2022 20:52:46 +1000 (AEST) Received: by marmaro.de (masqmail 0.3.6-dev, from userid 1000) id 1n3yNl-7Hu-00 for ; Sun, 02 Jan 2022 11:46:33 +0100 To: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org In-reply-to: <20220102040217.CE36D18C08E@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20220102040217.CE36D18C08E@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Comments: In-reply-to jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) message dated "Sat, 01 Jan 2022 23:02:17 -0500." MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <28017.1641120393.1@marmaro.de> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Date: Sun, 02 Jan 2022 11:46:33 +0100 From: markus schnalke Message-ID: <1n3yNl-7Hu-00@marmaro.de> Subject: Re: [TUHS] roff(7) [ and other related stuff ] X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" Hoi. [2022-01-01 23:02] jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) > > > From: John Cowan > = > > Why use C syntax? What was wrong with Fortran, Lisp, or Cobol synta= x, > > extended to do what you wanted? > = > Why do all hammers look basically the same? Because there's an 'ideal > hammer', and over time hammer design has asymtoted toward that 'ideal ham= mer' > design. Hammers don't look so much the same, except that each has a stick and a head. Seems this example is a too simple one. Saws for instance look quite differently, even within western culture, but even more between western and japanese culture! > So I suspect there is, to some degree, a Platonic 'ideal syntax' for a > 'classic block-structured' programming language, and to me, C came pretty > close to it. I suspect that this assumption is limited to our programming culture. We can hardly think outside of it. That's for the same reason, Europeans did not create saws in Japanese style -- they simply solved the same problems in a different way. Thus I'd rather call it one of many possible good syntaxes for a classic block-structured programming language ... and within our culture about the best one. But as well, in such views we obviously like to ignore the very suboptimal `switch' (good for compilers; bad for programmers) and the not so clean optional braces for single-statement blocks. C's syntax is by no means as perfect, as we like to see it, but nonetheless, it is very good. (And I like it a lot myself.) Btw: With the rest of your message, I agree. Good that we're not stuck with one syntax (and thus with one programming model) forever. ;-) meillo