Re: What is the Simplest Programming Language?

"merosonox" <merosonox@yahoo.com> said:
> Other than Smalltalk, Lisp, Forth and ahem Intercal what is the most
> simple programming language to create a ((relatively) useful) compiler
> for?


This will probably get me flamed mercilessly, but I still have a soft spot
in my heart for good old-fashioned BASIC, line numbers and all. I didn't
think much of it when I first encountered it, over thirty years ago now,
but, with the benefit of a few decades of experience, I have learned to
value something that lets me get results, easily, quickly.


Yes, it is ugly, yes, it is primitive, yes, there are better ways to do it.
But: for SIMPLE number-crunching, like SIMPLE circuit design, I can get
numbers back from BASIC faster than just about anything else out there.


If I had a decent FORTRAN IV compiler, linker, and runtime library,
comparable to the old CDC 6600 RUN compiler, or the old Minnesota FORTRAN
(MNF) compiler (also on 6600), I'd probably use that. But I don't. If I
had something equivalent to the old Turbo PASCAL, say version 2 or version
3, before it became a serious commercial software development package, when
it was still just a simple editor and a BLINDINGLY *FAST* compiler that quit
and dropped me into the editor at the point of the first error, I'd probably
use THAT.


--John R. Strohm
strohm@airmail.net

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