[Info-vax] DCL's flaws (both scripting and UI)

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

David Froble skrev den 2015-01-21 20:17:
> johnson.eric at gmail.com wrote:
>> On Wednesday, January 21, 2015 at 6:34:33 AM UTC-5, Jan-Erik Soderholm
>>  wrote:
>>
>>> No, it doesn't! There is no data type like the Python "dict" i
>>> Basic! You have to write your own routines using the available
>>> (simpler) data types.
>
> Ok, this is perhaps a "perspective" thing.  My impression of Python, and
>  some other products, is that they SEEM very versatile because of all
> the library procedures included in the distribution.

Yes, that is correct.

> Now, to me, a library procedure is just that, and can exist in many
> environments.  I, and this is my perspective, perhaps different then
> that of others, do not consider library routines as part of a language.

Maybe, but...

I do not think anyone thinks of standard, built-in data types as
part of some "library". As in Python, you do not have to load
("import") anything to use the "dict" data type. It's standard.
Just as ints, strings, lists ("arrays") and so on.

If you want something like the "dict" data type in Basic,
you *have* to write some library routines since it is not
part of the language itself (as it is in Python).

You seems to have very hard to understand that a language
can have that feature *in* the language itself. If the
"dict" data type isn't there, it isn't Python...


>> It is true that there isn't a computational problem in the world that
>> eludes the power of DEC Basic.
>
> YES!  Just that.  However, you may have a problem convincing some of
> that statement.

Not me, at least. With sufficent time and work, you can do
anything an any programming language. But I guess it wasn't
me you thought of, right? :-)

I'm only saying that there is a specific standard datatype
builtin into the laguage standard itself in Python that
simply isn't there in Basic.


Jan-Erik.