Summarizing the C vs Transcript conversations...

[Frank Leahy]

Hello All,

There's been a fair number of posts regarding the fact that Transcript 
doesn't look and act like C.  (I'm afraid that I was a big part of the 
conversation a couple of months ago when I suggested that it would be 
nice if simple constructs like "a = b + c" could be supported.)  And 
now that I am completing this photo album project, I thought I'd share 
my experience.

This project has two pieces, a RunRev based client for Mac and PC, and 
(optional) PHP server code.  Lately I have been going back and forth 
between Transcript and PHP, making sure that the code producing static 
photo album pages is identical to the dynamic pages produced by the PHP 
code.  I have my iBook on the left, running RunRev, and a PC on the 
right running Zend Studio, and I spend a lot of time going back and 
forth between the two.

What's been interesting about this part of the process is that my 
thoughts of a couple of months ago, which ran in the vein of "what a 
pain in the a-- that Transcript doesn't work like C/PHP" have mellowed 
to "OK, that's Transcript code, and this is PHP code, and it will only 
take a couple of minutes to convert between the two".   I'm surprised 
how often I will make something work in Transcript, and then port it to 
PHP; and then the other way around, I'll develop it first in PHP and 
then convert it to Transcript.

I understand Marc's desire that it would be nice if Transcript 
supported C-like syntax, because most of the worlds computer languages 
are C/Algol like (no need to comment if you have counterexamples that 
all languages aren't C/Algol like...I believe you).  But I also 
understand the bulk of the list's belief that Transcript is easier to 
learn than C (it is), and that there really is no good reason to add 
C/Algol like syntax, because, well, there isn't.  Everything you want 
to do in Transcript you can.  And once you get your head around the 
fact that it isn't C, it is, well, much easier to stomach the fact that 
it won't ever be C.

So Marc, and everyone else who's scratching their heads wondering if 
it's worth putting up with this strange syntax, the answer is yes.  
Transcript and Revolution are what they are, and wishing them different 
isn't going to change things, but the productivity increases are so 
great that it is worth learning and using.

Enjoy,
-- Frank Leahy

p.s. No need to respond...I'm really not trying to re-ignite a flame 
war...