On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 at 3:31 PM, David Matthews < David.Matthews@prolingua.co.uk> wrote:
I have to say I'm not convinced by the arguments in favour of tinkering with the language. For all its deficiencies the Revised Definition does give us a document where we can agree on what is or is not Standard ML. The proposals I have seen appear to be fairly minor changes that really make little difference to real coding, perhaps saving a line or two here or there. I really wonder if it is worth the disruption.
I think the problem is that any change seems to involve adding complexity to an already complex language. When I did my PhD I was heavily influenced by Tony Hoare's 1980 Turing Award lecture in which he argued that the successors to a language were usually worse than the original. In his case he was comparing Algol 60 with Algol 68 and Pascal with Ada.
Changes don't have to add complexity. The point here is to make it even possible to add those changes that are actually simplifications (like degrading abstype), or which are simple conveniences (like line comments, or bars before first match clauses).
I wonder if it is possible to design a modern, small strict functional language. I certainly think that a language where most of the data is immutable has enormous potential particularly for parallel or distributed applications.
That sounds like strict Haskell. Certainly the world is missing a pure strict language. (Though Scott Owens does have a formal semantics for such a language, called "MiniML", in HOL4; but the language is nowhere near ready for real use yet.)
David
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