Re: Modula-2: what went wrong?

Chris Burrows <cfbsoftware@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> "graham.kerr.stark@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
" <graham.stark@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote 
> in message 
>
news:7c9a0c9f-3394-43de-8ece-3f8f1d45f650@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> So, I have two questions:

>> 1) Why have these languages failed? Ada and Delphi are alive to an
>> extent, but none dominate, and - lets' face it Modula-2 is barely used
>> at all. At first sight, they offer so many advantages, especially in
>> clarity and type safety.
 
> Failed? Failed to have mass acceptance do you mean? Does that really 
> constitute a failure? I would rather be in the company of a few lions
than 
> millions of sheep ;-)

Yes, that really DOES constitute a failure.  Without an active and
reasonably large community, you don't get compilers for new platforms
or even fixes for the defects in the extant compilers.  You also don't
get libraries for new functionality.  The reason that you had to switch
from Modula-2 back in 1995 can only be called the failure of Modula-2.

To think otherwise is just whistling past the graveyard.

>> 2) Is it fixable? Can anyone imagine a language in this tradition that
>> might be a hit? What would it look like?
 
> I was happy with the improvements of Oberon-2 over Modula-2 from a
language 
> perspective but it wasn't until the .NET Framework 2.0 and Component
Pascal 
> for .NET came along a couple of years ago that I was able to start
replacing 
> Delphi as my tool of choice for implementing Windows apps with the
clarity 
> and security of Oberon-style code.

I don't know why it wouldn't be fixable, though.  It would take a lot of
work to build a system that people want to write in and build the
software required to make it a reasonable choice for new development.

Also, there's no reason why the language couldn't look a lot like
Modula-2.  The biggest problem I see is twofold.  First, the world seems
to have decided that object orientation is essential for compiled
imperative languages.  Second, the hot languages among the sort of people
who gravitated to Modula-2 seem to be in the functional family.  It's
been 20 years since the ISO decided to screw up Modula-2, and the rest
of the programming world hasn't stood still.  It would be hard to catch
up.
-- 
Jonathan Guthrie (jguthrie@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
)
Sto pro veritate