[E-Lang] E Project, Documentation, and new programmers

[Chip Morningstar]

>From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" <shap@cs.jhu.edu>
>
>I have watched the various syntax discussions of the past week with
>dismay, because in the long run I felt that most of the changes
>contemplated really had no larger significance. I cannot point to one
>that I think was worth breaking existing code for. Offhand, I'm not
>really convinced that they improved the ability to do persistence
>(though I haven't tracked this closely).
>
>Further, I think it's absurd that in contemplating these changes we did
>not insist on automated forward conversion (rewriting) so that our
>customers would be manageably disrupted.
>
>The point here is not to berate anyone. It's to suggest that as a group
>we lost sight of the mission and slipped temporarily from "design for
>usability" into "design for abstract beauty". The success to date of E
>derives from the former, not the latter. I want to suggest that we
>figure out where we lost track of the former attitude and go back and
>retrieve it.

I'm not ordinarily one to waste bandwidth just to say "me too", but
I'd like to go on record as giving Jonathan's remarks here my complete
endorsement.

Chip