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Re: Language vs. Library why it matters

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg61230] Re: Language vs. Library why it matters
  • From: "Richard J. Fateman" <fateman at eecs.berkeley.edu>
  • Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 01:39:37 -0400 (EDT)
  • Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
David Annetts wrote:
> Hi Steve, 
> 
> 
>>If we look at compiled and byte compiled languages such as 
>>C,C++,Java, C#, etc., we see they typically consist of a core 
>>language, and standard libraries.  In C, and C++ the 
>>demarcation is very clear. I know I've asked a similar 
>>question in the past, but it's something that recures to me 
>>every time I start working with Mathematica.  Is there a core 
>>Mathematica language?  If so, what does it consist of?
> 
> 
> What does it matter?
>
> 
> 
  Here's why it matters.  Let us say that SW really wants to develop
  a whole bunch of programs that have nothing much to do with mathematics


  He would then have to take out all the Math and have a core language.
  Call the language Atica.  Whose name I claim copyright status and
  which SW can use only with my permission.

  So Atica can be used as an educational tool for computing courses,
  for building web pages, airline reservation systems, robotic controls,
  artificial intelligence, and marketing-droid publication of spam.

  Atica would have to be specified carefully (contrary to some comments
  here, it IS NOT nice to have a language so complicated that you don't
  know what it will do, and use as an excuse that's ok because no one
  else knows either, and often it does the right thing.)

  And the language core could be defined by leaving out all the math
  components except (say) integer and double-floating-point arithmetic.
  But leaving in all the looping, data manipulation, patterns, and I/O.


> Atica (c) 2005 Richard Fateman
> Also
> Attica (c)
> Atttica (c)
> Attttica (c)
> 
> (I think it would really neat to write a library to identify and suggest
> fixes to bugs written in this programming language.  It could be called
> the "Attica correctional facility")
>
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