From: matz@... (Yukihiro Matsumoto)
Date: 2002-09-12T16:28:13+09:00
Subject: Re: Larry Wall's comments on Ruby

Hi,

In message "Re: Larry Wall's comments on Ruby"
    on 02/09/12, Friedrich Dominicus <frido@q-software-solutions.com> writes:

|> And I believe a good language design lies somewhere between these two
|> extreme spectrum.  Because "ordinary people" often feel uncomfortable
|> in extreme situation.  We don't use the simplest language ever
|> (machine instruction) anymore.  We don't use the most complex language
|> either (Ada? PL/I? whatever).  It's the matter of balance.
|
|I agree, but I don't think Assembler is a good example for a simply
|language. I'll tell you why I think so. Assembler programmer must know
|extremly much about different memory access models. This is
|complex. Therefor I don't think Assembler can be a simple
|language. The other thing which makes it complex that you must do it
|all by hand, you have to know exactly how the processor at hand
|works, and you must know that types there are and this book-keeping
|has to be done by you. Therefor Assembler is not easy, as describe here
|C or Pascal are easy. (and a bunch of others too) 

I said "machine instruction" that is a sequence of bytes.  No syntax,
no keyword, anything can't be simpler as a language.  But of course as
you said it requires bunch of knowledge for programmers.

A simple thing is not a easy thing.

							matz.