Function Syntax

[John J. Barton]

On 11:59 AM, Allen Wirfs-Brock wrote:
>
> On May 10, 2011, at 4:53 PM, Douglas Crockford wrote:
>>
>>
>> I look at ECMAScript as serving four groups:
>>
>> 1. The beginners for whom the language was designed.
>> 2. The web developers who owe their livelihoods to the language.
>> 3. The scientists who will use the language for greatness.
>> 4. Language designers and critics.
>>
> I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "scientists".  The third group I 
> would identify are professional software developers who will use the 
> language to implemented complex applications of the soft that today 
> are more commonly implemented using Java, C++, etc.  These are larger 
> systems that need more emphasis upon upon abstraction building in 
> order to manage the domain and application complexity.
>
> At a meeting today, the dichotomy we used in talking about this is the 
> difference between "imperative programmers" and "abstraction 
> builders".  Imperative programmer know how to use basic imperative 
> statements to manipulate predefined abstractions.  Abstraction 
> builders  create such abstractions. I think that all of your #1 and 
> much of #2 are "imperative programmers".  While we need to continue to 
> improve the language for this group we also need to start better 
> serving the needs of the abstraction builders.   Much of what we have 
> promoted to proposal status seems to be oriented target on this latter 
> group.
Both application developers and library/framework developers benefit 
from clear, widely understandable code. Adding bizarre special 
characters and programming constructs that require world-class 
programming language expertise to understand helps neither group.

jjb



>
> Allen

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