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Re: Reply to Ousterhout's reply (was Re: Ousterhout and Tcl ...)

To: scsh@martigny.ai.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Reply to Ousterhout's reply (was Re: Ousterhout and Tcl ...)
From: hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker)
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 15:55:10 GMT
Organization: nil
In article <334B68EC.3F66@maths.anu.edu.au>, Graham Matthews
<graham.matthews@maths.anu.edu.au> wrote:

> There is a much simpler reason why all these ugly languages about -- its
> called intertia. There was a lot of code written in the 70s in ugly
> languages -- written before we knew how to make good languages. All that
> code has to be supported, interfaced to, etc, so all the ugly languges
> it is written in are now the standard. Simple.

There are far more ugly programs than ugly languages.  Using a 'good'
language does not guarantee pretty programs.  In fact, since a 'good'
language has immense power, it is possible to write uglier
programs in a 'good' language, than it is to write ugly programs in
a 'bad' language.  This, of course, is one of the justifications I've
seen for forcing people to write in 'bad' languages !!

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