[Gnu-arch-users] Re: Re: darcs vs tla

[Matthew Palmer]

On Thu, Nov 11, 2004 at 10:32:45AM +0100, Jan Hudec wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 10, 2004 at 20:40:49 +0000, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 09, 2004 at 10:21:51AM +0000, Catalin Marinas wrote:
> > > I also agree that programs look much nicer and easier to
> > > write in a high level language.
> > 
> > This is also a feature of programmers, not languages.
> 
> There is an interesting paper by Paul Graham. He has a hypothesis, that
> a programmer can write about the same number of tokens in a unit of
> time, no matter what language he is writing them in (or little matter).

Assuming equal competency in each language, it seems reasonable.  There is a
converse, however -- higher level languages typically have more takens,
which means means that competency in a HLL will be lower for the same amount
of study effort and experience.

> Now that would mean, that programming is more efficient in a higher
> language. The higher here means it can do more work with one statement.

Andrew's comment wasn't about productivity, it was about readability and
maintainability.  Having seen code in a lot of languages, I agree with him
that programmers can make an equal mess in any language.  Touting a language
because it supposedly easier to write neat code will get nowt but a hollow
laugh from me.

- Matt

signature.asc
Description: Digital signature