[E-Lang] on what does popularity hinge? (was: down with `define' (was: newbie syntax: picayune points from a prejudiced programmer))

[Mark S. Miller]

At 10:58 AM Friday 3/2/01, zooko@zooko.com wrote:
>1.  Word-of-mouth
>
>2.  _E_in_a_Walnut_
>
>3.  Being able to code something small (in my case a personal radio
>    station to play random mp3s and to generate a web page showing what
>    I was listening to) within a few hours of learning.
>
>4.  Being able to code big projects effectively.

I think this is a great list.  I hadn't really thought about #1, but I think 
you're right.

Regarding #3 (as well as command line usage), I learned an interesting 
lesson from Tcl and sh.  Both are routinely used to code much larger 
projects than they should be, often because these projects started out small 
-- often small enough that Tcl and sh weren't horrible choices at the time.  
But successful small projects often incrementally grow into large projects.  
And once invested you're often stuck.  Although they don't have a command 
line, much the same could be said of Basic & Perl.

One way to look at #3 is to make E a language with the same "trap", but 
one you don't curse once you find you're trapped.


>For what it's worth E is a singularly interesting language to me in
>that it is actively designed to pass all of these hurdles and not just
>#4, which is the traditional focus of language designers.

Actually, till now it had only been designed for hurdles #2, #3, and #4.  We 
now adopt #1 as well.  Thanks.

As for the *singularly* interesting part, I suppose we qualify on #2.  
MarcS, Walnut doesn't teach any other languages, does it?


        Cheers,
        --MarkM