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From: paulward@torolab.vnet.ibm.com (paulward)
Subject: Re: The Grand Challenge
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Message-ID: <PAULWARD.95Jun7081853@skyhawk.torolab.vnet.ibm.com>
In-Reply-To: jwl@miki.cs.bris.ac.uk's message of Mon, 5 Jun 1995 14:30:37 GMT
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 12:18:53 GMT
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References: <3qkhmj$e5s@hitchcock.dfki.uni-sb.de> <D9pEz1.9JJ@info.bris.ac.uk>
Organization: IBM Toronto Lab
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.lang.prolog:13192 comp.lang.functional:6005 comp.constraints:694 comp.object.logic:469

>>>>> "John" == John Lloyd <jwl@miki.cs.bris.ac.uk> writes:

John> In article <3qkhmj$e5s@hitchcock.dfki.uni-sb.de>, vanroy@dfki.uni-sb.de (Peter Van Roy) writes:
John> |> The Grand Challenge in Programming Languages
John> |> --------------------------------------------
John> |> 
John> |> The Grand Challenge in programming languages is to build a *single* simple and
John> |> practical system with *maximum* expressiveness.  There is *no* system that
John> |> provides such useful notions as concurrency, constraints, full compositionality,
John> |> lexical scoping, search, typing, distribution and persistence, while remaining
John> |> *simple*.  Is this Grand Challenge ludicrous?  Well, no.  Major progress has
John> |> been made.  But there is still much to do.

John> I believe this to be a thoroughly inappropriate Grand Challenge. There will never 
John> be such an ultimate language - simply because of the wide range of applications we
John> have to cope with. A more sensible Grand Challenge would be to create 3 or 4 
John> languages using different but related paradigms to cover the variety of 
John> applications - that is, we want to create an "ultimate family of languages".

He did say system, not language.
-- 
-- Paul (paulward@vnet.ibm.com)   | A barbarian that requires a justification
DB2/PE Development.               | will use the nearest appealing one.  Blame
Shouldn't there be a shorter word | the barbarian, not his justification for
for the concept "monosyllabic".   | his acts.
