Lambda the Ultimate

...how to implement a monadic version of comefrom in Haskell. Could be useful don't you think?

I believe it's already April 1st in some parts of the world.

Nonetheless, this fits right into my impression of PHP as the pinnacle of Great Language Design.

Unlike other programming languages, PHP wasn't born a lowly general purpose lifeform, it *evolved* from a C library to help write CGI apps into a language and lastly into a language that's being adopted for stuff like general shell scripting and even GUI applications.

This shows that PHP is totally at home in the real world, that its design is the best ever, that PHP embraces - unlike other languages - the nature of connectivity and the web, and now of course innovative language constructs that help great programming in the One and True PHP style that is - well, the general madness that is PHP.

April 1st and all, I know.

However, nothing wrong with GOTO if your language lacks proper error management and/or flow control. GOTO is the closest thing to exceptions when you don't have them.

Of course you can argue that a proper language has better flow control, but you can't deny the simplicity of GOTO. Hell, at the lowest level your CPU is just a big GOTO machine anyway.

mmm, Intercal here we come

..and I wish it was just an April Fools joke.

I think anyone who has dealt with code heavily infested with the Observer Pattern soon realises that it is merely an OO implementation of the "COMEFROM" statement.

In the same way the Singleton pattern is merely OO lipstick on the "global variable" swine.

It's high time that COMEFROM received more attention from the PLT community. In this single language construct we see the essence of both AOP and multi-threading.

When will Donald Woods and James Lyon -- INTERCAL's creators -- receive the recognition they deserve? Lest anyone doubt their foresight, try substituting INTERCAL with XML in the following quote:

INTERCAL's main advantage over other programming languages is its strict simplicity. It has few capabilities ... [and] is an exceedingly easy language to learn, [so] one might expect [that] it would be a good language for initiating novice programmers. Perhaps surprising, than, is the fact that it would be more likely to initiate a novice into a search for another line of work. As it turns out, INTERCAL is more useful (which isn't saying much) as a challenge to professional programmers.

I rest my case.