Novel Thoughts on Scripting and Languages

[James Huang]

"Steve Hunt" <steve at pSoPgAgMle.org> wrote in message news:<1042135695.8954.0 at dyke.uk.clara.net>...
> > is to do things easily, intuitively, obviously, and accurately, so
> > much so that when another person (with the same domain knowledge) sees
> > a chunk of code, he immediately understands it without even a hint of
> > reasoning (ideally).
> 
> A lot of people would take issue with that definition.  But ignoring
> that, it puzzles me why you feel that introducing domain-specific
> syntax *helps* with code readability.  

Readability is not much of an issue; statements are terminated
regularly so people know where to start and where to end.

The issue is focus. Of course I have to talk about Java and Java
scripting. Take that e-mail example again, regular Java scripting
languages can use classes in javax.mail.* package to assemble an email
message before sending it out. If I am not familiar with that
particular package, or worse, I am not even aware what "multi-part"
is, how do I send a message with attachments??? I have a lot to learn
before I can do anything even though I can still program in general.
With a sendMail statement/command, anyone can do it. That is, the user
focus exactly on what you are doing, not the (implementational)
details. And this happens to be a very good example of my definition
of "scripting".

> At least with the
> traditional system of fixed language syntax and domain-specific
> APIs you don't have to be constantly on the lookout for new
> syntax gotchas.

Again, that should be the difference of scripting (using) vs
programming (making software). I agree with you for the programming
situation and I do appreciate that, but I am talking about scripting.

I actually recommend NOT to use JudoScript to create large software;
if one needs to, should write in Java then use JS to glue it.

> 
> -- Steve