Re ANN: A new scripting language Tao 0.9.0 beta released!

"Kenneth Downs" (knode.wants.this@see.sigblock) wrote:

> In all sincerity, sounds like you described PHP.  What does Tao have that
> would draw anyone away from PHP?

Honest saying, I didn't intend to draw people from other languages, I
was just trying
to implement a language in a way that I think it should be, and
provide people another
option. Of course, there will be some features in Tao will not be
available in
PHP, e.g., built-in types for numerical computation, as pointed out by
Ara.T.Howard.

Regards,

Limin

Fu Limin wrote:
> Honest saying, I didn't intend to draw people from other languages, I
> was just trying to implement a language in a way that I think it
> should be, and provide people another option. Of course, there will
> be some features in Tao will not be available in PHP, e.g., built-in
> types for numerical computation, as pointed out by Ara.T.Howard.

In what ways is your language distinctive? How does developing your own
language (as opposed to making stronger one of the languages whose
newsgroups you've posted to) make the sum of human experience richer?
And do any of these observations/questions below help you explain these
larger matters? :^)

Odd things I've noticed in a quick trawl through your docs:
* What no bit-ops? And why give ^ a non C/C++ meaning?
* What sort of characters are you using?
* How does passing by reference square with constant arguments?
* Your I/O interface has a /long/ way to go!
* The complex number and matrix stuff seems reasonable.
* It is probably a good idea to add something like a C/C++ switch; it
might only be syntactic sugar around if, but good syntax makes a
difference.
* Given that you are using mutable objects, do you have a way for
someone to force a duplicate of an arbitrary object? That would make
doing things like security separation much easier.
* The ~~ operator is neat.
* Do you have some kind of subtype operator?
* Are classes, namespaces and modules all objects? Can you introspect
on them to discover what exists and what you can do with them?

I think that's enough points to be going on with for now. :^)

Donal.

"Donal K. Fellows" <donal.k.fellows@manchester.ac.uk> writes:

>    * What no bit-ops? And why give ^ a non C/C++ meaning?

If it means exponentiation, I'm in favor!  (I haven't looked.)

--
Donald Arseneau                          asnd@triumf.ca

Donald Arseneau wrote:
> If it means exponentiation, I'm in favor!  (I haven't looked.)

He's doing that, but that means there's no bitwise xor (or other bitwise
ops). In Tcl (8.5), we use ** for exponentiation instead so we get to
have our cake and eat it.

[F'ups set; I doubt this subthread's going to stay interesting to
non-Tclers...]

Donal.

"Donal K. Fellows" <donal.k.fellows@manchester.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:d4nmjp$2eb1$1@godfrey.mcc.ac.uk...
> Fu Limin wrote: 
>
> In what ways is your language distinctive? How does developing your own
> language (as opposed to making stronger one of the languages whose
> newsgroups you've posted to) make the sum of human experience richer?
> And do any of these observations/questions below help you explain these
> larger matters? :^)
>

Yes, my personal opinion is we need less languages, not more.  This industry
has developed a Tower of Babel and it is hindering us in productivity.