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Why only 'minimal' languagesWhy is there still the trend to create languages where most functionality is implemented in some standard-libraries und not in the language itself? Quite often lots of time and effort are invested to make a language as extensible as possible and to create every feature (even standard datatypes, like arrays, lists etc) in the library and not as part of the languages itself. I think that's really antiquated thinking from the early years of CS where the usual usage patterns of programming languages where not so well known and an extensible language seemed much more powerful. But this has changed a lot: Today most usage patterns are commonly known and while there are lots of them, the total number of those patterns seems quite manageable. Often it's unneccessary difficult to use those 'library implemented' features. Think of using lists in a language without native list-support (like Java, C++ etc) and compare that to a language with native list-support. It's so much easier and much more readable in the latter. But why stop with those 'low-level' features? Why not try to build a language with ALL common used features directly in the language: From strings to maps to general graphs. From loops to threading to database-access. From visitor to observer to MVC. A language without much of a 'standard-lib' because it's mostly integrated in the language itself. Instead of inventing Systesm to create DSL why not simply create and integrate all those 'DSLs' in a single language? Sure, such a language would be less 'cute' than a minimal one. But I suspect we could gain lots of productivity, safeness and performance. By Karsten Wagner at 2006-06-15 17:09 | LtU Forum | previous forum topic | next forum topic | other blogs | 25788 reads
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