On Wed, Dec 18, 2002 at 05:46:56AM +0900, Sean Russell wrote:
> Martin Weber <Ephaeton / gmx.net> wrote in message news:<20021217154725.GC5693 / phaeton.entropie.net>...
> ....
> > > languages) and have narrowed it down to either Ocaml and Haskell. It'd 
> > > be great if any of you could share your experiences with either one or 
> ....
> > I'd look at scheme (scsh e.g.), too, before you decide for one.
> 
> I've no experience with Ocaml, little with Haskell, and a moderate
> amount with Scheme.  I'd choose Haskell over Scheme; Haskell's typing
> is sometimes irritating in that it adds an additional level of
> complexity and confusion for beginners, but Scheme's notation, IMHO,
> is a heavyweight source of irritation that overrides any other
> concerns.
> 
> To quote the old joke:
> 
>   The C programmer is found runnig down the hall waving a stack of
> printout saying "I'll bet you can't guess what *this* does!"
> 
>   The Ada programmer is found in a corner, bent over an Ada manual,
> trying to figure out if it is legal to add two Integers.
> 
>   The Scheme programmer is found hunched 2 inches from his monitor
> mumbling: "97, 98, 99... damn, where's that missing parenthesis??"

Or he just hits '%' in vi or the moral equivalent in his editor. Editors
are there to help you, remember ? I think the lisp syntax is the most
easy and plain there is out there (maybe aside from forth ? :) There
is one rule with some exceptions, one preference rule, that's it,
period. It can't get any easier. It's much harder to remember preference
tables a la C (wait, = before or after || ?) than to remember the whole
lisp syntax rules.

But well, it's on Sean to choose.

-Martin