Write only programming

From: John Chris Wren <jcwren_at_jcwren.com>
Date: Thu Feb 28 21:02:23 2002

        This is a personal tirade of mine. There is no such thing as a language
that supports comments that can be considered write-only. There are
write-only programmers, but personally, I can't think of a single language
that doesn't support comments in one form or another. From using Forth with
shadow files to the latest and greatest 5GL languages, they all support
comments. Feel free to show an example of a language that doesn't support
comments, it will be new to me.

        I've used ALGOL, FORTRAN, COBOL, Forth, C/C++, Java, Pascal, LOGO,
Smalltalk, Perl, Python, Ruby, DBASE, BASIC, PL/1, PL/M, ADA, Modula, APL,
Foxpro, SQL, and a few others that I can't even recall anymore. I've
written assembler on PICs, 6502, 68xx, 68xxx, 8051, 1802s, 8080/Z80, 29030s,
x86, Cyber 74, MSP430, TI DSPs, ADI DSPs, and about a dozen other
processors. My personal experience says there is NO write-only language.

        So don't blame the language. Blame the programmer. As we used to say,
"You can write FORTRAN in any language."

        --John

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org
> [mailto:owner-classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Cameron Kaiser
> Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2002 21:31 PM
> To: classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: Write only programming
>
>
> > > Youu could probably make a graph of "Write Only" languages,
> > > those that allow you to get things done, but then don't explain
> > > themselves very well when read later.
> > > The graph would have CoBOL and Pascal on the left side,
> > > and c and APL on the right.
>
> > I'd have to disagree - I'd think C is somewhere in the middle
> (well, maybe
> > middle right) but more to the right would be 68xx/65xx
> assembly, then x86 &
> > Lisp, but I'll agree that APL is the "king daddy" of unreadable
> > languages... that's why I love it so much! ;-)
>
> Trump card of "far right" languages: INTERCAL. I guess that would make
> these languages fascist or something, being so far on the right?
>
> --
> ----------------------------- personal page:
> http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
> Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University *
> ckaiser_at_stockholm.ptloma.edu
> -- Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored. -- George Saunders'
> dying words -
>
Received on Thu Feb 28 2002 - 21:02:23 GMT

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