From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "James K. Lowden" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: [OFFTOPIC] Re: Invoking a function from a list of functions Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2018 11:40:11 -0500 Organization: http://www.NewsDemon.com Message-ID: <20181116114011.cd51e04341e98a6b76ef10d2@speakeasy.net> References: <67c4a534-d41c-4736-8839-c2dbbdf7f9c2@googlegroups.com> <2da7504a-8bbf-41b9-993e-a7bacd6c97b2@googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1542386621 15235 195.159.176.226 (16 Nov 2018 16:43:41 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2018 16:43:41 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Nov 16 17:43:37 2018 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1gNhDV-0003rV-ID for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 16 Nov 2018 17:43:37 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:45741 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gNhFc-0003cz-2T for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 16 Nov 2018 11:45:48 -0500 X-Received: by 2002:a1c:dcc4:: with SMTP id t187mr1335049wmg.9.1542386412223; Fri, 16 Nov 2018 08:40:12 -0800 (PST) Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!y16-v6no902601wma.0!news-out.google.com!i13-v6ni2642wmb.0!nntp.google.com!proxad.net!feeder1-2.proxad.net!weretis.net!feeder4.news.weretis.net!border2.nntp.ams1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!npeer.de.kpn-eurorings.net!npeer-ng0.de.kpn-eurorings.net!peer03.ams1!peer.ams1.xlned.com!news.xlned.com!peer03.am4!peer.am4.highwinds-media.com!peer02.iad!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!post02.iad!fx37.iad.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help X-Newsreader: Sylpheed 3.4.3 (GTK+ 2.24.28; x86_64--netbsd) Original-Lines: 60 Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@newsdemon.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2018 16:40:11 UTC X-Received-Bytes: 3320 X-Received-Body-CRC: 3177461677 X-Original-Bytes: 3137 Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:224569 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "help-gnu-emacs" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:118697 Archived-At: On Thu, 15 Nov 2018 18:48:53 -0800 (PST) Rusi wrote: > > See for example > > http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/pete/research/esop-2014.html >=20 > Interesting! >=20 > | The array-computational model pioneered by=20 > | Iverson?s languages APL and J offers a simple=20 Yes. IMO array operators and orthogonal persistence are two very underappreciated language design features. =20 As for John Sowa, I have to agree and disagree:=20 > Whenever a major organization develops a new system as an official > standard for X, the primary result is the widespread adoption of some > simpler system as a de facto standard for X.=20 Yes, but his examples don't hold water > The PL/I project by IBM and SHARE resulted in > Fortran and COBOL=20 PL/1 post-dates Cobol by at least 7 years. By the time PL/1 was available, Cobol was already commercially successful. What use did the Cobol programmer have for PL/1? And what evidence that it's a simpler language? =20 > Algol 68 project by IFIPS resulted in Pascal Algol and Pascal are contemporaries, but Pascal was expressly designed as a pedagogical language. That it succeeded in academia should be no surprise, other than that it achieved Wirth's goals. =20 > Ada project by the US DoD resulted in C=20 Ada was developed concurrently with C, but C was in widespread use long before the DoD idiotically standardized on Ada in ... 1991. By that time C had escaped Bell Labs and been ratified by ANSI, not to mention had been used to write at least 4 operating systems. Ada's impact on C was nil. =20 > The OS/2 project by IBM and Microsoft resulted in Windows=20 Because Windows was simpler? Debatable, to say the least. There's a lot of industrial intrigue in that story, and marketing savvy. =20 And technical merit. What IBM really missed was exploiting protected mode while supporting real-mode DOS applications. Window's was "good enough" for most people: it ran faster and had 10x the application that OS/2 ever had. Windows NT was a game changer: protected memory and full multitasking for a couple thousand bucks. It cost 1/10 of the competition, and had at least 10x the application suite. OS/2 had neither the technical competency nor the application support. =20 --jkl