Re: Looking for new language features (re-elaboration)

brangdon@cix.compulink.co.uk writes:
> > Thanks for all the ideas and feedback. What I am really after, and the
> > fault is mine for not being more detailed in my original post, is
> > higher level features / semantics / control structures / data types /
> > language elements or whatever that make it "easier to program".
>
> An old idea which is often underrated: static data. A lot of problems
> are best solved by writing the answer in by hand - by tables of static
> data.


And one of the best ways to put such tables of data into your program
is via simple, commented text files.


With a bit more work (and for a large and complex application,
the work is more than worth it), the data tables can also contain
control information. You end up with a little domain-specific
language in which your actual application is implemented.


See this paper for details and examples:


%A M. Ward
%T Language Oriented Programming
%J Software---Concepts and Tools
%I |Springer|
%V 15
%P 147-161
%D 1994


http://www.dur.ac.uk/~dcs0mpw/martin/papers/middle-out-t.ps.gz


Martin


Martin.Ward@durham.ac.uk http://www.dur.ac.uk/~dcs0mpw/ Erdos number: 4
Maintainer of the G.K.Chesterton web site: http://www.dur.ac.uk/~dcs0mpw/gkc/

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