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From: meta@harlequin.co.uk (mathew)
Subject: Re: Perl, English, syntax for Scheme and shells (was Re: scsh in scm ...)
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Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 13:04:10 GMT
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In article <4cc999$424@jive.cs.utexas.edu>, wilson@cs.utexas.edu (Paul
Wilson) wrote:
> What do we look for in a syntax for a shell language, including one
> that's typed at an interactive prompt?

What I look for in an interactive shell is entirely different from what I
look for in a scripting and programming language.

I already have tcsh to work as my interactive shell.  I wouldn't dream of
writing text file processing software as tcsh scripts, though.

Similarly, I have Perl for writing text file processing tools, but I
wouldn't dream of using a shell that had Perl syntax.

> One thing I've been thinking about lately is that (again, rightly
> or wrongly) people are willing to learn command languages that have
> a very different syntax from normal programming languages

Absolutely.  I expect my interactive command language to have different
syntax from the programming languages I use, because they serve very
different purposes.


mathew
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