[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

Re: failures


At Mon, 9 Dec 2002 19:02:57 -0600, matt hellige wrote:
> [----- The Types Forum, http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/types -----]
> 
> [Dave Berry <daveb@tardis.ed.ac.uk>]
> > 
> > There is a large gulf between the people who design languages that everyone
> > uses, and the people who know the theory.  This gulf is shrinking, thanks
> > to some people who have worked hard to bridge it, but there's still a long
> > way to go before the language community's skills are properly recognised.
> > A popular book like this might help.
> 
> i think it's a nice idea, but would there be sufficient popular
> interest? gui design is something that many people feel compelled to
> know something about and participate in, but not so many feel that
> they're involved in language design (whether or not that's correct is
> another question).

Few people will ever design or implement an OS, yet at almost all 
institutions that I know, the (so-called) OS course is one of the 
most popular. The same is true for compilers or programming languages. 

The purpose of a book on failures is not to have everyone design a
programming language but to have everyone appreciate what a good 
programming language does for programmers and how difficult it is 
to get "good" right. 

-- Matthias
Follow-Ups: