On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 3:28 PM, Charles Céleste Hutchins <
celesteh_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> the only requirement is the ability to manipulate data and describe the
> way and order in which the data is to be manipulated
Indeed. And that's also all it takes to be a PL - to manipulate data that
describes the way other data is to be manipulated.
A 'good' PL needs to have a lot of other features, of course, such as
abstraction and modularity. (That's just the nature of competitive design:
'good' is relative)
> Also, software interfaces just wouldn't be as exciting to watch. I think
> that one important feature of live coding is the possibility of crashing
Yikes! I would not characterize living dangerously as an essential
'feature' of live coding.
It is possible to create PLs that address the issues around
live-programming. Such issues are common even outside of performance, e.g.
due to the maintenance concerns for 24/7 services; there it's called
runtime update or upgrade. The difficulty, of course, is getting that
feature <i>simultaneously</i> with all the others the language designer
might desire (efficiency, extension, composition, abstraction, modularity,
security, persistence, etc.). The runtime upgrade and persistence issues
have done much to shape my PL efforts over the last three years.
--
bringing s-words to a pen fight
Received on Sat Jan 12 2013 - 23:48:24 GMT