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Date:	Wed, 19 Mar 2003 06:18:23 PST8
From:	"Lynn H. Maxson" <lmaxson@pacbell.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-programming@scoug.com
To:	SCOUG Programming SIG <scoug-programming@scoug.com >
Subject:	SCOUG-Programming: Message Three

Content Type: text/plain

We have to question then why do we persist with a
minimalist, third generation language like C instead of moving
on to a full featured fourth generation language of our
choosing? If we have five stages of an SDP, and we can
reduce their manual implementation from five to two
(specification and testing) or one (specification only), then
what keeps us from moving on?

Nothing.

We know that our own "native" language has constantly
undergone changes from inception to meet new needs. We
know the same has occurred with "artificial" programming
languages. We have extended C into an object-oriented form
with C++ and then produced a variant of that with JAVA. We
know that newer implementations, versions of compilers
introduce changes. So what's to keep us from making
beneficial changes of our own?

In open source, nothing. In fact open source supports the
premise and the promise of beneficial changes, i.e.
customization, as well as the philosophy of sharing such. We
have two such classes of beneficial changes, those that
expand it within third generation options and those that
extend it with fourth generation enhancements.

In considering any change we want to provide full backward
compatibility to protect the investment we have made in
existing source. In that manner we can apply the benefits to
new source immediately and revisions to old at a rate of our
choosing.

For revisions within the third generation or imperative HLLs
we have three (3) models: LISP, APL, and PL/I. These three
IMHO (In My Humble Opinion) collectively offer the
maximum possible benefits within imperative language limits:
LISP for the list data aggregate and operators, APL for its
primitive operators and their symbol set, and PL/I for its broad
range of data types, syntax, operators, and exception
handling among others. As part of this we will also examine
the recent development of Perl, Python, and PHP languages,
all of which are implemented in C. We need to understand
why these language authors like those of YACC, LEX, and
AWK, all similarly based in C, felt something different was
needed.

In short we will come to have a better and deeper
understanding about programming languages. With that we
will have the means to compare them in terms of syntax,
semantics, and programmer productivity. We can then make
changes and empirically measure any change in productivity.

Remember our ultimate goal lies in increasing productivity to
the point that we can implement changes in our solution set,
our software, at a rate equal to their occurrence in the
problem set. Also note that thus far none of the third
generation, imperative languages mentioned so far individually
or in combination support this level of productivity. For all
have shortcomings and fail to attain of the glory of our
goal.

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