[e-lang] Announcing development snapshot E 0.8.36i

[Chip Morningstar]

MarkM writes:
>I just had a long talk with Chip about the evolution of E. Once I explained 
>the issues motivating the new via pattern, I think Chip was satisfied that his
>objections were adequately addressed. (Chip, if this isn't accurate, please 
>speak up!)
>
>Chip's underlying discomfort is a sense that things are getting more 
>complicated over time. Now that I've posted a compact description of all the 
>Kernel-E constructs, Chip and I both thought it would be illuminating to post 
>an old Kernel-E definition in the same notation for comparison.

I think that's a pretty accurate summary of our discussion.  As I said in the
message that started this, my concern wasn't with this feature per se as much
as with my sense of a more general feature creep phenomenon.  MarkM persuaded
me that the particular feature under discussion really is well motivated.

Also, I am willing to entertain the possibility that my sense of growing
complexity is a perceptual artifact, stemming from the variability of the
language over time as the design gradually anneals.  Each variation is still a
new complexity to be mastered, but a person coming to this late in the
discussion will not have had to experience the earlier complications which have
since been squeezed out, whereas I've been following this from the beginning
and so have had to funnel through my brain the full run of the inevitable
two-steps-forward-one-step-back process needed to converge on a complete and
consistent language design.

> <...two generations of Kernel-E definitions summarized..>

This was quite useful, and makes a persuasive case that the kernel language now
is not significantly more complicated than it was several years ago.


It would be useful to see a similar exposition for the non-kernel language,
since that has also undergone a fair bit of flux over the past couple of years.
Moreover, it is the non-kernel form that most programmers who encounter the
language will be learning and working with, so that is the place where concerns
about linguistic complexity would probably most usefully be invested.

Chip