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From: "John Colagioia" <JColagioia@csi.com>
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Subject: Re: [TADS3] Just another scripting language?
Date: Mon, 01 Jul 2002 08:13:58 -0400
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"Kevin Forchione" <kevin@lysseus.com> wrote:
>From: "Wladimir" <gnufnork@fuckspam.hetdigitalegat.nl>
>> ...bringing...
>> *yet another damn computer language into this world*
>> WAAHH.. we had enough of those!
>> That was my point.
>Awww... and the whole movement of the day is to *embrace* diversity as a
>strength :)

I don't like language holy wars (and, thus, this is yet another
thread I wanted to avoid, but find I don't have the strength of
will to do so).  Every fall, I teach a grad course in programming
languages, and issues like this come up every time.

My opinion on this particular issue is that "another damn
computer language" would actually be fine.  Diversity, as you
say, is a pretty darn good thing.  However, from what I'm
hearing about TADS3, it's not diverse, but instead pretty much
like every other language, in terms of syntax and functionality.

While that might be useful or even critical, it's still...boring,
and on the surface appears to represent a lot of duplicated
effort, considering the number of other full-featured, nearly-
portable programming systems out there.

If I were a TADS person, I suppose the questions I'd be asking
would be:
1)  What are the semantic differences between TADS3 (the
    language, not the library) and Java, or even C#?  That is,
    are they any different to program in, once you get past
    syntax weirdness?
2)  Regardless of the answer to #1, is there any measurable
    benefit (other than tradition or "coolness factor") to
    compiling to the TADS3VM rather than the JVM?  In particular,
    can the TADS3VM be implemented on lower-end systems?
3)  Assuming a failure on the other questions, does the new TADS
    at least facilitate the development of the TADS3 library in
    ways that Java, C#, C++, Ruby, PERL, or Python would fail
    to?  To be specific, is TADS3 so different from the more-
    established PAWS?

I mean, I'm not trying to antagonize or discourage, as I hope
is obvious, but I can understand Wladimir's concerns, and they
would be very similar to my concerns, if I had not already all
but wedded myself to Inform (where I actually do have similar
issues with the Glulx machine).
