Nick Sabalausky wrote:
Fair enough. *But*, I really think "elegantly simple" language design is double-edged sword. In my experience, and I think this is what Jeremie was alluding to, I've found that an "elegantly simple" language, no matter how well-chosen the primitives are, generally results in a problematic lack of expressiveness and a frequent sense of fighting against the language instead of merely using it.
It's a good point. One finds when programming in a simple language that one has to write a lot of rather complex code to make up for it. C is an obvious example - try writing OOP in C. It can and has been done, but it's ugly, verbose, complex, error-prone and inelegant.
It's like a professional handyman having the smallest possible possible toolbox with only the barest essentialls, versus a big super-toolbox that has all the *right* tools he might need. Just because it's there doesn't mean it has to be used, but if I were a handyman and had to remove a phillips-head screw, I'd want to be able to reach for a forward/reverse drill and an appropriately-sized phillips-head bit, and not have to pry it out with the bare minimum (the back of a hammer, or a sort-of-sized-similarly manual flathead screwdriver), and also not have to put one specialized mini-toolbax back and switch to a differently-specialized mini-toolbox for every different task.
That resonates with me. When I was a kid working on cars, I had nothing but the most basic tools. You could get things done, but the workarounds were unpleasant and difficult, and I often wound up damaging the parts in the process. Now, I just go buy the specialized tool, and get it done quickly and easily, and no damage.
For example, it's so nice to have a drill press and get the hole *straight* <g>.
