Subject: Re: What is the most "Elegant" Language?
From: Erik Naggum <clerik@naggum.no>
Date: 1997/10/15
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.prolog,comp.lang.scheme
Message-ID: <3085946866762678@naggum.no>


* Bill Gribble
| "Common LISP: The Language, 2nd edition" is 1029 pages long.  I don't
| call that "simple". p. 586 et seq (sec 22.3.3 for those of you following
| along at home) describe in some depth the requirements *in the language
| spec* for Common LISP dealing with numbers represented as Roman numerals,
| both modern ("IV") and "old" ("IIII").

perhaps you should actually read those pages?  they're about _printing_
numbers in Roman style, not "dealing" with them.  it's strictly an output
feature, part of the admittedly enormous `format' function and _language_.

| I call any language that mandates handling of Roman numerals in its
| language definition "a mess."

I have a few words for people who can't be bothered to read carefully, too.
however, I don't find any particular reason to share them right now.

#\Erik
-- 
if you think this year is "97", _you_ are not "year 2000 compliant".

see http://www.naggum.no/emacs/ for Emacs-20-related material.