Re: [GD-General] Eiffel

[Thatcher U. <tu...@tu...>]

On Dec 19, 2001 at 06:03 -0800, Brian Hook wrote:
> 
> Seriously though, I've known people that were crippled by not having
> their .el files, and basically wouldn't use a computer until A.) Emacs
> was installed and B.) they had their custom ELisp files loaded.  To me
> it's like a bassist saying "I can't play unless I have my Wal".  Tools
> matter, but they shouldn't matter so much that you're non-functional
> without your perfect choice of tool.

What's the saying... "A poor craftsman blames his tools."  But don't
you think platform-specific integrated environments encourage that
behavior rather than discourage it?

> A better way of putting what I'm thinking is that programming needs to
> become a more integrated process.  Radical disconnects between design,
> analysis, versioning, and authoring, even if they're patched together by
> the wonder that is Emacs =P, don't help.  It should become a process
> whereby the various tools can take advantage of domain-specific
> knowledge relating to the underlying language in use.
> 
> Ugh, I'm still saying this poorly -- how about this: programming should
> be moving outside the domain of a language/syntax and into the domain of
> a complete development process.

Well... the problem is, target environments vary.  The more my tools
know about Windows, the less well adapted they are for Mac or PS2 or
Palm.

One approach is to make everything in the world use a common run-time
--> e.g. Java and .NET.  Lots of the .NET verbage sounds like what
you're advocating.  It's sort of the Lisp Machine legacy... everything
understands the code, even our CPU, and the code is data.  And I don't
think it's necessarily a bad thing; lots of incompatibilities are
totally gratuitous and just get in the way.  Nevertheless, there are
real and legitimate forces that make one-size-fits-all very
difficult... like, devices are getting smaller (cellphones, yadda
yadda).

-- 
Thatcher Ulrich <tu...@tu...>
http://tulrich.com