It seems that NewtonScript is a major factor contributing
to the sluggish uptake (and near-death) of the Newton.
NewtonScript seems to be like Esperanto; a custom
language with some nice features but not really
that popular because everyone wants to speak
something else. A small (decreasing) elite claim
it is fantastic.
C/C++ is more like English; a bit of a hodge-podge
but spoken by a huge percentage of the world's
population.
Why the Newton should have had, from the start,
a cross-platform (yes guys, Windows *is* popular),
standard C/C++ development environment;
- There is a massive C/C++ skillbase in the developer
community that could have been leveredged to develop
Newton apps.
- There is a huge amount of C/C++ source code as well
as algorithms and libraries implemented in this
language.
- C++ is *exciting* to many people who would have
been very interested in seeing their work implemented
on a portable device such as a Newton. Even better
would be a simple C/C++ development environment on
the Newt itself so that people could play and
experiment with their C++ code while on the road,
at uni, etc...
- One acronym: GNU
Hell, even Scheme or Lisp would have been better than
NewtonScript. The amount of source code in these languages
is immense.
It is sad to see a promising and visionary device
such as the Newton brought down by such a poor decision
by the language "purists". Language elitism does not
benefit anyone but a few with their own barrow to push.
- Peter.
In article <············@cdn-news.telecom.com.au>,
·····@vus002.telecom.com.au (Satan - The Evil 1) wrote:
> It seems that NewtonScript is a major factor contributing
> to the sluggish uptake (and near-death) of the Newton.
Actually, I'd have to completely disagree here. There are hundreds (maybe
thousands) of Newton apps. I'd wouldn't be surprised if there are more
Newton apps than apps for all other non-DOS handhelds combined.
I really don't think you can attribute Newton's market standing to lack of
applications (and hence to NewtonScript). If anything, Newton's survival
is due to the huge number of apps, and the productivity allowed by
NewtonScript!
Don
* Don Vollum
| I really don't think you can attribute Newton's market standing to lack
| of applications (and hence to NewtonScript). If anything, Newton's
| survival is due to the huge number of apps, and the productivity allowed
| by NewtonScript!
but don't you see? if programmers are more productive, users are happier,
and there won't be much bitching and moaning about crappy software in the
trade rags, dimwits won't find things to "fix" and boost their ego with,
there won't be millions and millions of below-average programmers who write
junk software, and the Newton will die. if you want to succeed, use an
unproductive language that attracts stupid people, write buggy software
that gets lots of press (make sure to write it so badly that you open a
door for viruses in _each_ of your applications!), and get unhappy users
who crave the next version like you're pushing dope on them. make sure you
offer your customers a belief in a better _tomorrow_. don't give them any
good stuff today -- nobody believes in things they can _see_. you need to
create _illusions_ to get people to buy from you again and again, and you
just can't create illusions when people actually get what they dreamed of
right away. nono, leave them craving, and you got them by the balls.
actually, I hope that the Newton will show people that they don't _have_ to
be forever unhappy sufferers of Microcrud. I'm glad they chose a new
language for the Newton. it's the only way we can hope for progress.
(that's right, that's "a better _tomorrow_" all over again. see how
fundamental it is to inspire with the future?)
#\Erik
--
man who cooks while hacking eats food that has died twice.
On 19 Aug 1997 00:40:43 GMT, ·····@vus002.telecom.com.au (Satan - The
Evil 1) wrote:
>NewtonScript seems to be like Esperanto; a custom
>language with some nice features but not really
>that popular because everyone wants to speak
>something else. A small (decreasing) elite claim
>it is fantastic.
I would suggest that Java would be a good substitute,
**IF** the core language does not suffer from too
much bloat: a case in point: new JFC classes should
(probably) not be part of the core API, and the
"Personal Java" api is still a little too fat.
Java with a really slimmed down "standard" class
library seems perfect for Newton-like devices.
(BTW, I bought a Newton when they first came out,
and I did not particularly care for the NewtonScript
language -- although it served a need at the time).
-- Mark
+ Mark Watson, author and Java consultant.
+ Java products: http://www.markwatson.com
+ Buy direct from the developer and save!!
> C/C++ is more like English; a bit of a hodge-podge
> but spoken by a huge percentage of the world's
> population.
"Huge?" This may be true if the boundaries of your world include only
the U.S. & Europe.
Este mundo tiene muchas lenguas (hablar y computadoras) y es necessario
por cambio.
--
Jason Dufair
·····@n.o.s.p.a.m.iquest.net (remove n.o.s.p.a.m. to reply)
http://www.iquest.net/~funne/
PGP key @ http://www.iquest.net/~funne/jdufair.asc or keyservers
In article <············@cdn-news.telecom.com.au>,
·····@vus002.telecom.com.au (Satan - The Evil 1) wrote:
> It seems that NewtonScript is a major factor contributing
> to the sluggish uptake (and near-death) of the Newton.
>
> NewtonScript seems to be like Esperanto; a custom
> language with some nice features but not really
> that popular because everyone wants to speak
> something else. A small (decreasing) elite claim
> it is fantastic.
>
> C/C++ is more like English; a bit of a hodge-podge
> but spoken by a huge percentage of the world's
> population.
Yes, C++ is a hodge-podge alright (^;. If I had my druthers, Pascal would
rule the world, but where were you 20 years ago? You sound like my old
boss talking about COBOL when C started to pick up steam.
No, Newtonscript may not win the popularity contest, but thinking C++ is
like English and will rule the world forever is plain silly. Let's face
it, COBOL was just verbose overkill for a single user-PC, that's why there
was plenty of room for improved languages in the 80s. And can you
remember when OOPS was "the thing!" Nearing the turn of the century and
already Java is showing up C++ for it's 80s insistence on verbose handles
and memory management.
Anyway, as PCs have done to COBOL, handhelds may do to C++. The one
reason why Newtonscript is far better for handhelds than most languages
can be summed up in one word "protos". Just see the problems being
discussed about porting JAVA, and what was supposed to be meant for
handhelds. And clean portability has been the Holy Grail of programming
for 40 years. I'd sooner buy the Brooklyn Bridge.
And besides, there is already, albeit limited, C++ compiler for Newtons
anyway. And then there's NSBasic and Newt, too.
I'm sorry, what do you expect when you come to this group and call us all
language "purists"? I know about 8 or so languages. Newtonscript is just
better and gets the job done quicker and nicely. I expect better
languages will become more popular in the near future and I'll be praising
and using them, too. If you think C++ has "won" and you won't have
another 8 or so languages to learn before you type your last line of code,
you might have a harder time looking for work sooner than you think. In
fact, if you want to talk popularity, aren't there more lines of BASIC
code in the world?
--
Sincerely,
Alan Drogin
Above e-mail is phoney (die spammers!) Use drogin "at-sign" panix.com
pURL for Digital Objectives - Newton Bookmark Manager for the digerati
http://members.aol.com/DigObj/pURL.html
NYC
In article <·························@drogin.dialup.access.net>,
Alan Drogin <········@panix.com> wrote:
>you might have a harder time looking for work sooner than you think. In
>fact, if you want to talk popularity, aren't there more lines of BASIC
>code in the world?
>
>--
Don't forget FORTRAN 77. No matter how limited the language is it
is still the most common language in science.
Andrew
--
Andrew Maier Tel: +41-22-76-77907
CERN/PPE FAX: +41-22-782-3084
CH-1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland e-mail: ············@cern.ch
God is real, unless declared integer
Alan Drogin (········@panix.com) wrote:
: In article <············@cdn-news.telecom.com.au>,
[...]
:
: I'm sorry, what do you expect when you come to this group and call us all
: language "purists"? I know about 8 or so languages. Newtonscript is just
: better and gets the job done quicker and nicely. I expect better
: languages will become more popular in the near future and I'll be praising
: and using them, too. If you think C++ has "won" and you won't have
: another 8 or so languages to learn before you type your last line of code,
: you might have a harder time looking for work sooner than you think. In
: fact, if you want to talk popularity, aren't there more lines of BASIC
: code in the world?
You are entirely missing the point. Take a look at the following post;
+>In order to get my feet wet with the C++ WindowsCE cross dev kit, I
+>ported XLisp v1.6 over to the WindowsCE/HPC platform. The port, in
+>source code, and precompiled SH3/MIPS binary form is available at
+>
+> http://tigar.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/pub/PocketLisp
+>
+>It is based on XLisp v1.6, a free Lisp Interpreter. Versions are
+>available on tigar for SH3, MIPS, and Windows95/NT to facilitate
+>development on all platforms (the source can be recompiled under
+>Linux, or just about anywhere else as well, if you should fancy it..).
+>
+>There are no licensing restrictions, except those from David Betz,
+>the orignal author of XLisp for Unix.
Now *how long* has it taken to get a lisp compiler on the
Newton (is there one)??!?? There is so much stuff out there
written in C/C++ and so many developers eager to work with
this language that supporting it is a definate advantage.
I am not so arrogant as to say that C++ is the world's greatest
language (as you are saying about NewtonScript). I'm am just
saying that the Newton would be far more popular and widely
used if you could create applications for it in C/C++ rather
than NewtonScript. And despite your prophecies of doom, I am
quite certain C/C++ will be around for a long, long time
to come.
It is this arrogant, elitist attitude that almost killed
the Newton, and I'm not just talking about NewtonScript;
many of us PC/Windows owners had to suffer through years
of poor Newt-PC connectivity. Developers had to use a
Mac or nothing and it was left to third-party developers
to supply non-Mac development tools.
Get off your high-horse. Maybe you think to Newt is just
a yuppy toy for you "country-club" boys, but I believe it
could have been (and could still be) so much more!
Regards,
- Peter.
: --
: Sincerely,
: Alan Drogin
: Above e-mail is phoney (die spammers!) Use drogin "at-sign" panix.com
: pURL for Digital Objectives - Newton Bookmark Manager for the digerati
: http://members.aol.com/DigObj/pURL.html
: NYC
In article <············@cdn-news.telecom.com.au>,
·····@vus002.telecom.com.au (Satan - The Evil 1) wrote:
> +>In order to get my feet wet with the C++ WindowsCE cross dev kit, I
> +>ported XLisp v1.6 over to the WindowsCE/HPC platform. The port, in
> +>source code, and precompiled SH3/MIPS binary form is available at
> +>
> +> http://tigar.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/pub/PocketLisp
> +>
> +>It is based on XLisp v1.6, a free Lisp Interpreter. Versions are
> +>available on tigar for SH3, MIPS, and Windows95/NT to facilitate
> +>development on all platforms (the source can be recompiled under
> +>Linux, or just about anywhere else as well, if you should fancy it..).
> +>
> +>There are no licensing restrictions, except those from David Betz,
> +>the orignal author of XLisp for Unix.
And I'll be waiting for the explosion of useful WinCE commercial products
because of this wonderful LISP port...NOT!
> Now *how long* has it taken to get a lisp compiler on the
> Newton (is there one)??!?? There is so much stuff out there
> written in C/C++ and so many developers eager to work with
> this language that supporting it is a definate advantage.
> I am not so arrogant as to say that C++ is the world's greatest
> language (as you are saying about NewtonScript).
I did NOT say Newtonscript was the greatest language, I said it was better
than C++ for the handheld..
> I know about 8 or so languages. Newtonscript is just
> : better and gets the job done quicker and nicely. I expect better
> : languages will become more popular in the near future and I'll be praising
> : and using them, too.
> I'm am just
> saying that the Newton would be far more popular and widely
> used if you could create applications for it in C/C++ rather
> than NewtonScript.
It didn't happen, it'd be difficult to change that, lets move on. Your
argument is purely based on popularity, not on any knowledge of
Newtonscript, and surely not with any thought that perhaps there's room
for improvement in the future. What you don't see are programmers around
here saying, "oh I learned Newtonscript and it sucks". Sure in the ideal
world you could learn one language, port it anywhere, and just sit back
and let your code re-use itself forever.
> And despite your prophecies of doom, I am
> quite certain C/C++ will be around for a long, long time
> to come.
I have friends who still program in assembler for a living, so what? It's
you who have already prophecied the doom of the Newton. C++ will fade.
Computer languages are not like spoken languages, they're like
generations. And the next generation of schooled programmers will be
laughing at coding handles and memory management. Newtonscript will fade,
too, but it hasn't reached it's generational mark yet.
> many of us PC/Windows owners had to suffer through years
> of poor Newt-PC connectivity.
Ah, I agree, connectivity is poor, but that seems to be more based upon
the filing and data structure than on Newtonscript itself. I think this
is just one area that Apple Newton just didn't throw enough resources at
solving.
>Developers had to use a
> Mac or nothing and it was left to third-party developers
> to supply non-Mac development tools.
Point number 2. Yes, it was a shame WinNTK took so long to get out of
beta. Funny thing was, one of the reasons was the shaky PC serial
connectivitiy.
> Get off your high-horse. Maybe you think to Newt is just
> a yuppy toy for you "country-club" boys,
Quite the opposite. I used to be a desktop programmer for almost 20
years, but it was just getting too expensive to buy all the upgraded
manuals (MacApp alone takes up an entire bookshelf), debuggers, resource
managers, and keep track of these huge bloated application frameworks and
still remain a personal programmer (the PC world was beginning to look
like the Mainframe world I had left almost 20 years ago). When NTK came
out, it had one manual, and one developer toolkit. It was simple and
elegant. And now it's free. I think there's some other underlying angst
going on for you to use the term "yuppy toy". Did some young kid with a
cellular phone and not the faintest idea of what an opcode is just put you
out of job?
As I said, the C++ thing didn't happen for the Newton, too bad, now crack
open that Newtonscript ref manual and learn something new.
--
Sincerely,
Alan Drogin
Above e-mail is phoney (die spammers!) Use drogin "at-sign" panix.com
pURL for Digital Objectives - Newton Bookmark Manager for the digerati
http://members.aol.com/DigObj/pURL.html
NYC
On Tue, 19 Aug 1997 13:04:44 -0400, ········@panix.com (Alan Drogin)
wrote:
>Point number 2. Yes, it was a shame WinNTK took so long to get out of
>beta. Funny thing was, one of the reasons was the shaky PC serial
>connectivitiy.
Only shaky because someone made the decision not to use standard
Windows serial drivers and write their own. That someone shall remain
nameless, but as an organization it does often fall into the "not
invented here" trap.
ttyl
Jason
In article <············@cdn-news.telecom.com.au>,
·····@vus002.telecom.com.au (Satan - The Evil 1) wrote:
> It seems that NewtonScript is a major factor contributing
> to the sluggish uptake (and near-death) of the Newton.
This is a major false decision by Apple! There are even more:
- the use of an object-oriented OS. Nowbody needs that.
- the use of a pen and not a keyboard. Everybody else uses a keyboard.
- another GUI. Everybody else uses Windows.
- lack of a file system. This soup thing is crazy.
- running on the ARM processor. Everybody else is using Pentiums.
- No support for Emacs. Does not even run GCC.
- No shell/command line. Familiar commands like "ls" and "tar"
don't work.
- No Corba support. They claim it has objects. But it
even doesn't support CORBA.
- Netscape Navigator could have run on it from day one. But it didn't.
> It is sad to see a promising and visionary device
> such as the Newton brought down by such a poor decision
> by the language "purists". Language elitism does not
> benefit anyone but a few with their own barrow to push.
There are many more poor decisions by the Newton group.
--
http://www.lavielle.com/~joswig/
Rainer Joswig <······@lavielle.com> wrote:
+---------------
| - the use of a pen and not a keyboard. Everybody else uses a keyboard.
+---------------
Gee, somebody ought to tell the USR\\\ 3Com "Pilot" developers (over 3000!)
and users (several million!). ;-} ;-} They seem to do o.k. without one.
+---------------
| - another GUI. Everybody else uses Windows.
+---------------
Ditto above.
+---------------
| - running on the ARM processor. Everybody else is using Pentiums.
+---------------
Pilot uses a 68k.
-Rob
-----
Rob Warnock, 7L-551 ····@sgi.com http://reality.sgi.com/rpw3/
Silicon Graphics, Inc. Phone: 650-933-1673 [New area code!]
2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. FAX: 650-933-4392
Mountain View, CA 94043 PP-ASEL-IA
····@rigden.engr.sgi.com (Rob Warnock) writes:
> Gee, somebody ought to tell the USR\\\ 3Com "Pilot" developers (over 3000!)
> and users (several million!). ;-} ;-} They seem to do o.k. without one.
now, if just someone could write a small lisp that will run on my
512K Pilot (and which could replace that stupid 1970-s style calculator),
I'd be even more happy with it. It shouldn't be _that_ difficult,
after all the predecessor of MCL (Coral Common Lisp) didn't need more
than appr. 1MB of RAM, and I don't need necessarily need *all* of
common lisp in my pocket.....
--
Espen Vestre
Espen Vestre <··@nextel.no> wrote:
| now, if just someone could write a small lisp that will run on my
| 512K Pilot (and which could replace that stupid 1970-s style calculator),
| I'd be even more happy with it. It shouldn't be _that_ difficult,
| after all the predecessor of MCL (Coral Common Lisp) didn't need more
| than appr. 1MB of RAM, and I don't need necessarily need *all* of
| common lisp in my pocket.....
Well, you can write a Lisp-in-Lisp that's as small or large as you want.
For example, there's a nice little scheme in Structure and Interpretation
in Computer Programming. All in all, I think you can get by with 20 or 30
special forms, that's pretty much that.
Once you compile that small lisp or scheme to bytecode or C, you then just
have to port that program to the Pilot OS.
From there, of course, you just write further extensions in Lisp.
When I first used CCL, I was using it on a Macintosh (the 128K Macintosh,
folks!) retrofit with a 4MB, 68020 processor. I can't recall what that
upgrade board was called...
Anyway, I wrote my thesis, and then took it to the first Alife show to
demo, and ran it on a (then-new) Macintosh II. Whoo hoo. But it ran really
slowly. It turns out that someone had taken some of the memory out, so
there was only 1 MB of memory in the machine.
Still, although CCL garbage-collected a lot (maybe 50% of the time the GC
cursor was up) the code ran JUST FINE.
This is one of the main reasons I've always liked Lisp. Although
CommonLisp and CLOS add a couple megs to the footprint, there's no
particular memory limit, as long as your data fits in whatever memory is
left over.
Add to that the fact that you never, ever have to deal with allocating or
freeing memory (until you call the underlying OS directly), and you see
that an awful lot of the coding problems that C programmers have simply
vanish.
Of course, this is exactly what Java is re-inventing all over again. But
hey, good is good, and if there's eventually a kick-ass java language, so
much the better.
bc
In article <···················@17.127.10.113> ··@wetware.com (Bill
Coderre) writes:
> Espen Vestre <··@nextel.no> wrote:
> | now, if just someone could write a small lisp that will run on my
> | 512K Pilot (and which could replace that stupid 1970-s style
calculator),
> | I'd be even more happy with it. It shouldn't be _that_ difficult,
> | after all the predecessor of MCL (Coral Common Lisp) didn't need more
> | than appr. 1MB of RAM, and I don't need necessarily need *all* of
> | common lisp in my pocket.....
>
Why not just take SIOD (Scheme in one Defun) which is a portable
small-footprint implementation of Scheme in C (ca. 45k) and port it to the
PalmOS if you have got the C Compiler?
cheers,
Bernd
>>>>> "EV" == Espen Vestre <··@nextel.no> writes:
EV> now, if just someone could write a small lisp that will run on
EV> my 512K Pilot (and which could replace that stupid 1970-s
EV> style calculator), I'd be even more happy with it. It
EV> shouldn't be _that_ difficult, after all the predecessor of
EV> MCL (Coral Common Lisp) didn't need more than appr. 1MB of
EV> RAM, and I don't need necessarily need *all* of common lisp in
EV> my pocket.....
Well, it seems to me that scheme48 would probably be a good starting
point, as it really aims at a low memory foot-print (was used
successfully in embedded-applications, at least the vm-part), and is
also built around a VM-architecture, so that porting should be rather
"easy"...
Sorry, seems I misplaced it's bookmark, so you would have to search
via alta-vista.
Regs, Pierre.
In article <············@cdn-news.telecom.com.au>,
·····@vus002.telecom.com.au (Satan - The Evil 1) wrote:
> It seems that NewtonScript is a major factor contributing
> to the sluggish uptake (and near-death) of the Newton.
It seems that NewtonScript is a reason for
the elegance of the Software on the Newton.
Bloat is not known. Apps are small and
are tightly integrated into the OS.
Seems like Apple/Newton Inc. is way beyond the competion.
> C/C++ is more like English; a bit of a hodge-podge
> but spoken by a huge percentage of the world's
> population.
Languages which are almost useless for application development
on small devices. C++ will be forgotten soon.
> - There is a massive C/C++ skillbase in the developer
> community that could have been leveredged to develop
> Newton apps.
They won't be Newton apps. Just another incarnation
of Windows apps for the Desktop.
> - There is a huge amount of C/C++ source code as well
> as algorithms and libraries implemented in this
> language.
Most of them are not designed for a portable device
with an integrated object-oriented OS.
> - C++ is *exciting* to many people who would have
> been very interested in seeing their work implemented
> on a portable device such as a Newton. Even better
> would be a simple C/C++ development environment on
> the Newt itself so that people could play and
> experiment with their C++ code while on the road,
> at uni, etc...
Better get a Windows CE device. It might fit your needs.
Otherwise this is old thinking. I would say from
the stone age where people were carving algorithms
in C++ files.
> - One acronym: GNU
Bloat.
> Hell, even Scheme or Lisp would have been better than
> NewtonScript. The amount of source code in these languages
> is immense.
Immense and useless for the Newton.
> It is sad to see a promising and visionary device
> such as the Newton brought down by such a poor decision
> by the language "purists". Language elitism does not
> benefit anyone but a few with their own barrow to push.
The Newton simply stands out by its elegant design.
You want wo add features that may change its
face to be something completely different.
I would say, you haven't got the Newton nature. What is it?
Tell me. Quick.
--
http://www.lavielle.com/~joswig/
In article <·································@news.lavielle.com>,
······@lavielle.com (Rainer Joswig) wrote:
In article <············@cdn-news.telecom.com.au>,
·····@vus002.telecom.com.au (Satan - The Evil 1) wrote:
> C/C++ is more like English; a bit of a hodge-podge
> but spoken by a huge percentage of the world's
> population.
Uhhuh...and if everyone jumps off the cliff I'm sure you will too lol. ;-)
And who says English is an efficient language...far from it. It's just the
easy way out because we all know it.
> - There is a massive C/C++ skillbase in the developer
> community that could have been leveredged to develop
> Newton apps.
Maybe so, but why propogate bad programming and coding? And you gain back
a LOT of productivity by using NS...c (it's not "C" people) and C++ are NOT
very productive languages to the programmer...they require a LOT of up
front work and a LOT of care just to manage memory leaks and all the 'c'
programmers who learned C++ tended to carry forward a lot of bad habits.
And C++ is far from object-oriented. It's McDonald's for the programming
masses...pretty much the least common denominator if you don't count 'c'
itself.
They won't be Newton apps. Just another incarnation
of Windows apps for the Desktop.
> - There is a huge amount of C/C++ source code as well
> as algorithms and libraries implemented in this
> language.
Most of it badly written...evolved (or worse PORTED) from original 'c' code.
C++ is ok as a language....but it's inherited a TON of badly written code
that people would just LOVE to port onto another platform. How many
companies have a zero tolerance QC department when it comes to their C++
development...just because you're a big corporation using/creating tons of
C++ code doesn't mean you produce good code; quite the contrary.
The one thing that hasn't been mentioned (as far as I know) is that the NTK
is a MUCH MUCH MUCH more stable product than any C++ compiler I've used
(and I've used a lot of them.) I've never had the NTK crash out from under
me or crash the Mac. I've had the Newton reset and crash due to what I was
doing in the NTK; but the environment itself is a wonder of stability.
> - C++ is *exciting* to many people who would have
> been very interested in seeing their work implemented
> on a portable device such as a Newton. Even better
> would be a simple C/C++ development environment on
> the Newt itself so that people could play and
> experiment with their C++ code while on the road,
> at uni, etc...
Ah yes the greed factor.... They want to do it quickly instead of doing it
right. You can develop NewtonScript on the road ON your Newton using
either Steve Weyer's NDE (Newt) or my own VisualNewt (which is in VERY
early beta).
Also, when was the last time you ran the Small-C compiler on any
incarnation of pc? did you like it? Where you really impressed with the
power of the programs you were able to create? That's pretty much the
quality of C++ you could expect. Not very powerful, minimally useful but
mildly amusing.
Actually, FWIW a Micro-COBOL implementation on the Newton would be a more
logical choice *IF* you wanted a more standard language. It's structured;
has database support, requires a minimal footprint, AND you can develop
meaningful apps...AND libraries...of course you'd have to bind it to the
proto system somehow.
My personal choice would be something on the order of Mops (a
structured/object-oriented FORTH). But that's another can of worms.
> - One acronym: GNU
Buggy...as most programs written by committee tend to be ;-)
> Hell, even Scheme or Lisp would have been better than
> NewtonScript. The amount of source code in these languages
> is immense.
So what's keeping you or anyone from writing a compiler/environment for ANY
of these languages...basically it comes down to the fact you (maybe not
personally but globally you) don't want to learn NewtonScript...you're
taking the easy way out. You *can* write other compilers and stuff for the
Newton....I'm sure Newton, Inc. will even give you internals and help if
you are serious. But do it using the tools at hand...NewtonScript and the
C++ tools.
> It is sad to see a promising and visionary device
> such as the Newton brought down by such a poor decision
> by the language "purists". Language elitism does not
> benefit anyone but a few with their own barrow to push.
Ah you've already made up your mind I see..."Newton brought down.."
It hasn't been brought down. Who says it has? Actually the return rate on
WindowsCE machines is about 50%. So much for a supposedly state-of-the-art
mass appeal GUI and C++ environment. And it has little to do with
hardware, and more to do with the user experience.
When it comes right down to it people like to take the easy way out.
They'd rather stay with something they know and get warm fuzzies from (C++)
rather than learn something better. It has nothing to do with language
purism. Rather it a decision based on pragmatic reasons and for the
productivity it provides. It's like arguing...wow I'd never buy a
Ferrari...that's a snob's car...I'd rather stay with my nice Taurus.
I'd rather drive the Ferrari ;-)
S
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