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 820 invoked from network); 2 Jan 2022 01:20:57 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (45.79.103.53) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 2 Jan 2022 01:20:57 -0000 Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id EC99E9D03D; Sun, 2 Jan 2022 11:20:53 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2473B9CF06; Sun, 2 Jan 2022 11:20:38 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id C26E89CF06; Sun, 2 Jan 2022 11:20:34 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mcvoy.com (mcvoy.com [192.169.23.250]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 3A2EE9CE58 for ; Sun, 2 Jan 2022 11:20:34 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mcvoy.com (Postfix, from userid 3546) id A2C0F35E0F8; Sat, 1 Jan 2022 17:20:33 -0800 (PST) Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2022 17:20:33 -0800 From: Larry McVoy To: John Cowan Message-ID: <20220102012033.GB7055@mcvoy.com> References: <20211231234039.GU31637@mcvoy.com> <202201012000.201K0Fd31610896@darkstar.fourwinds.com> <20220102001244.GF10078@mcvoy.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.24 (2015-08-30) 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: , Cc: TUHS main list Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" On Sat, Jan 01, 2022 at 08:04:58PM -0500, John Cowan wrote: > On Sat, Jan 1, 2022 at 7:13 PM Larry McVoy wrote: > > My big complaint with stuff like Rust, or even Go (sorry Rob), is that they > > picked a different syntax. Why not just use C syntax and extend it to do > > what you want? Why must every project redo everything. > > Why use C syntax? What was wrong with Fortran, Lisp, or Cobol syntax, > extended to do what you wanted? I'm almost speechless. My progression was Basic, Pascal, C (and later Fortran, Lisp, no Cobol, I did an Ada Compiler so Ada I guess). Then on to awk, perl, tcl, I tried to like C++ but couldn't, tried to like Rust, Go, D, and couldn't. If you think any of those other languages remotely approach the elegance of C, I just don't know what to say. C is beautiful, you look at the code and you can see what the hardware will be doing but it isn't assembler. It's what assembler wished it could be. It's the right mix of high enough that it works over all architectures and low enough that you see the hardware. You don't see the hardware with any of the other languages you listed.