Argh! No more programming language analogies please! RE: Any use cases for untidy literals except long range datatyping?

Value typing and (implicit or explicit) (compile- or run-time) coercion
vary across programming languages; Eiffel, for instance, doesn't suffer
(if that's the word) as badly as, say, Java, which has made some attempt
to inherit primitive numeric type coercion from C.

Where this coercion occurs - ie, at the parsing/semantic checking stage
or late at evaluation - depends on the language of choice.*

I'm sure everyone can find a programming language (whether traditional
or scripting) that backs up their viewpoint. Maybe we should pick one
and just do what that does. My vote would be for scheme - or possibly
intercal.

jan

* I would add "and how brain-damanged it is" but that's just my opinion
  :-)

-- 
jan grant, ILRT, University of Bristol. http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/
Tel +44(0)117 9287088 Fax +44 (0)117 9287112 RFC822 jan.grant@bris.ac.uk
Boycott Arabic numerals! What have they ever done for us?

Received on Monday, 12 August 2002 07:36:11 UTC