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Re: If you could design a $300 homecomputer today, what would you choose?

I demand that David Cantrell may or may not have written...

> On Mon, 16 Jul 2001 17:52:42 +0100, Darren Salt
> <news@youmustbejoking.demon.cu.invalid> said:
>> The way that I differentiate between 'script' and 'compiled' languages is,
>> roughly, this...

>> If the compilation (and linking) step is commonly separate (C, C++,
>> Pascal, Ada...), it's a compiled language.

>> If the compilation step is integrated into the runtime environment (Perl,
>> Python (I think)), it's a scripted language.

> Python can be either, just like emacs Lisp.  Of course, it 'compiles' to a
> byte-code which it then intreprets, it's not *real* compilation.

So using javac isn't real compilation either...? I'd say that it's real
compilation, just for a virtual machine.

> Perl also has separate compile and execute phases, although at present you
> have to do truly evil things to presuade it to spit out the byte-code.

:-)

> However, I think that that differentiation is bogus.

It definitely isn't a clear and /clean/ differentiation... and I did say
'roughly'. I don't expect to stick rigidly to that :-)

> It means that most implementations of Lisp are not programming languages.
> It means that if (god forbid!) you were to run C in an interpreter, it
> would not be a programming language.

Slight edit needed, I think: "is commonly separate" => "is or can be used as
a separate step"... and yes, I've seen a C interpreter...

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