[OT] If programming languages were religions...

[Randall Lee Reetz]

On Dec 21, 2008, at 10:07 PM, Brian Yennie wrote:

> There's nothing irresponsible about it, because you are the only  
> one I see stirring up some sort of arbitrary taxonomic discussion.  
> This thread started as a light-hearted discussion of an article  
> comparing programming languages to religions. Someone dared call  
> Revolution by its name, and you jumped in on an xTalk rant.

This is not true.  You can call Revolution by its name all day  
long... in reference to the product.  But if you are setting up a  
comparison between major categories of languages, Rev's scripting  
language certainly doesn't rank its own spot along side the likes of  
C, Lisp, and SmallTalk.

As I said, there are important aspects of the Revolution product that  
ARE unique... the use and GUI centered IDE, the multi-platform  
develop and publish flexibility, the viability of the user community  
and this online support group, the stability of the company and the  
rapidity and reliability of the pace of version development cycle,  
the constant evolution of the product in lockstep with platform  
evolution, etc.  But the subject was the scripting language itself.

If I go to amazon to purchase a programming system, I will ask for a  
product by name.  If I am comparing language families it would be  
ridiculous to list Rev next to C.  If I was to mention Rev, I would  
have to then refer to CodeWarrior and such instead of C.

xTalk is to C as Revolution is to CodeWarrior.

My original post was not in direct relation to this silly religion  
thread.  The religion thread is a sub-thread to a larger discussion  
about what to call the scripting language within the Revolution product.

In this larger discussion, I saw a disturbing lack of historical and  
genealogical reference to the origin of the language upon which Rev  
is based.  Again, there is much about Rev that is unique within the  
xTalk development tool category... the scripting language itself is  
not significantly unique to this same degree.  In point of fact, it  
is upon the strength of this borrowed (event driven, message passing,  
object centered, english syntax) language that Rev is based.

That is how I describe Rev when I am asked.  There are better and  
worse IDEs in every language category.  For many reasons, Rev is one  
of the best in the xTalk category.  But what really makes Rev great  
is the same thing that makes SuperCard great... the friendly  
underlying xTalk language and simple object hierarchy within which it  
is situated.

In my opinion, the best way to brag up the Rev product is to call out  
its strengths.  Naming Rev's scripting language anything that does  
not directly reference this key attribute (xTalk) would ignore the  
goodwill inherent in the structure and heritage that was  
intentionally designed into the original SmallTalk and HyperTalk  
languages and the philosophy that drove those original design decisions.

As good as the Rev IDE is, if you wrapped it around C instead of  
xTalk, you would be left with C... most of us would abandon the  
product immediately.  Know what I mean?

Randall

Randall