I’ve been thinking lately about the differences between programming languages. Over and over again, we see religious wars over what is the best programming language. Lately, we’ve also seen a lot of comparisons that look at particular classes of languages. Object-oriented vs. procedural Dynamic vs. static I have always had a kind of fascination with… Read More »
I’ve seen quite a bit of interest in Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) on the Internet lately. Some good examples include Martin Fowler’s exploration of the subject: MF Bliki: DomainSpecificLanguage Language Workbenches: The Killer-App for Domain Specific Languages? He does point out that this is not a new idea. He uses Unix as an example of… Read More »
I find that I have a different viewpoint about programming languages than many programmers I’ve met. I feel that a programming language embodies three different things: a tool for solving problems an approach to thinking about solutions a notation I don’t believe that there is any language that is the best or most powerful in… Read More »
The Little Schemer Daniel P. Friedman and Matthias Felleisen The MIT Press, 1996. One of my wife’s friends recommended this book for learning Scheme. He’s a big proponent of Scheme and has even done research into teaching Scheme to kids. He is quite knowledgeable in his field. On the other hand, I have never written… Read More »
Like any natural language, most programming languages support idioms. According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, an idiom is A speech form or an expression of a given language that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements, as in keep tabs on. A… Read More »
In a natural language, an idiom is a phrase that conveys more information than the individual words combined. In order to understand an idiom, you must have knowledge of the culture of the person using the idiom, as well as a good grasp of the language. Programming idioms are similar. They involve uses of particular… Read More »