2 Sep
2017
2 Sep
'17
3:25 p.m.
On Fri, Sep 1, 2017 at 3:07 PM, Toby Thain <toby(a)telegraphics.com.au> wrote:
On 2017-09-01 12:22 PM, Dan Cross wrote:
[snip]
But by then the major design decisions would have been made. Was TeX after
that rewrite an appreciably different language?
But he wasn't using Pascal. The point was to
wonder whether TeX and
I mean in the mid-80s rewrite, of course. METAFONT would be different programs if he were. Clem
seemed to imply
I'll shoot him an email.
I'm well aware of that, which is why I specifically mentioned lexical
that he thought that was unlikely, based on his
previous use of SAIL.
[snip]
I have not compared the codebases but wouldn't one expect that the
final
production TeX rewrite is *more* ambitious
than the early SAIL
version?
(By the time I began using/porting TeX in the
1980s, the older
version
was completely obsolete.)
I don't know, but that's besides the point: the question was more about
how the initial programming language shaped the design of the program.
Specifically, had Knuth *started* in Pascal instead of SAIL, would TeX
have been different? To put it another way, to what extent was he
constrained, freed, or otherwise influenced by his medium?
Maybe Professor Knuth himself has written about that, I'm not sure. A
great question for him, anyhow.
He's in an excellent position to contrast these 3 languages. closures as (one of many) ideas with a powerful effect
on expressiveness
and style.
Hmm, it seems there are a number of more fundamental issues with the
language. I listed a number, mostly cribbed from Kernighan's paper and my
own experience.
- Dan C.