9 Dec
2020
9 Dec
'20
10:01 p.m.
please don’t blame c++ on pascal folks. stroustrup had nothing to do with pascal.
On Dec 9, 2020, at 7:41 AM, Clem Cole
<clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
Amen Doug.
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 11:36 PM M Douglas McIlroy
<m.douglas.mcilroy(a)dartmouth.edu> wrote:
To paraphrase John Cocke (speaking about Fortran): one must understand
that Unix commands are not a logical language. They are a natural
language--in the sense that they developed by organic evolution, not
"intelligent design".
But I offer a suggestion that another dimension
that should be forgotten in time scale and the economics within.
When things evolve they do so on different clocks that are not necessarily linear. i.e.
what was 'better' (winning) today, but might not be considered so tomorrow,
however could yet prove otherwise sometime later. I use programming languages as a great
example... There was a huge C vs Pascal debate, that C 'won' - but I've
always said the rise of C++ came from the Pascal folks that could say "C didn't
win." From the ashes of C++ we have Java, Go, and Rust.
My point is that "intelligent design" doesn't necessarily guarantee
goodness or for that matter,complete logical thinking.
My own take on this is what I call "Cole's Law" Simple economics always
beats sophisticated architecture.
What you call organic evolution is what I think of what makes the best economic sense for
the user and that is a function of the time scale and available resources at the time of
creation/deployment.
Clem