Re: [Funge] question + a new weird thing..

[Joshua J. B. <jjb...@uc...>]

So are we working towards Funge-2000 here? Funginium?

Perhaps we should stand back and see what we can *eliminate* from the Funge
specification, without taking away any power.

Writing a program in a Funge is like solving a puzzle. The best programs are
the ones written with the most elegance and innovation, especially with the
innovative use of a small number of opcodes. It is especially interesting to
see how many ways a program can be written with the same small set of
instructions. This reminds me of the many different models I would build
with the six or seven Lego bricks that came with my McDonalds Happy Meal
when I was a child. Of course, with the thousands of bricks I had at home, I
could build a lot more, but isn't a very well thought out model made of very
few pieces a beautiful thing?

If the idea of removing opcodes from the language bothers people, perhaps we
could work on two separate languages at the same time. A microfunge could be
the core language, and should be as small as possible while maintaining
Turing completeness. Then there could also be a superset of this language, a
macrofunge as it were, that could include interesting but unnecessary
commands, such as ']'. Of course, both languages would operate on the same
topologies, and other such standard things.

Only one interpreter would be necessary, because the only difference between
the core microfunge and the macrofunge would be additional commands.
What do you think?

-Joshua Belsky


----- Original Message -----
From: vsync <vs...@bi...>
To: <fun...@li...>
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2000 10:23 PM
Subject: Re: [Funge] question + a new weird thing..

> I have to say I agree with this.  While I think the Funge-98 spec was
> a Good Thing in some ways (threads etc), I was almost a little
> disappointed with the number of new opcodes.  It seemed like it was
> heading a little too far toward trying to become a concise, sensical
> language.
>
> The elegance of Funge is its convolutedness.  I have to say that I
> think Funge programming has forced me to think about programming on a
> slightly higher level, simply because of how painful it can be to
> program in.  =)