On 2017-09-01 12:22 PM, Dan Cross wrote:
[snip]
> 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
> 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.

I'm well aware of that, which is why I specifically mentioned lexical
closures as (one of many) ideas with a powerful effect on expressiveness
and style.