[mercury-users] Mercury as a 1st class prototyping language ?

[Brad Wren]

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-mercury-users at cs.mu.OZ.AU
[mailto:owner-mercury-users at cs.mu.OZ.AU]On Behalf Of david wallin
Sent: Thursday, 26 October 2000 4:46 AM
To: mercury-users at cs.mu.OZ.AU
Subject: RE: [mercury-users] Mercury as a 1st class prototyping language
?

Still, switching from a prototyping language to Mercury is probably harder
and less desirable than adding type and mode declarations etc to existing
code.

Programmers will probably always try to cut corners (isn't that the
definition :-) If Mercury was a prototyping language _and_ a strict
language, programmers would probably go from cutting corners in the
beginning to writing better code in the end. I think the quality of
the code might actually improve because it encourages experimentation.

I don't have anything against a strict language, but I sometimes feel
that it gets in the way of the creative process that programming is.


	There is the trade off, and well put. Programmers will not go from cutting
corners to writing better cose. They will simply overlook mercury because it
will make them 'not be lazy'. Granted that Mercury will not be used to write
enterprise scale applications any time soon, but increasing the user base
involved giving the programmers 'something'. If you give programmers what
they want in order to help them write their code faster, and have it more
optimised, then you really do have a great package which people will start
to use in greater numbers for entry level programming. Then it's just a
matter of moving up...

Brad

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