[Off topic] Software epigrams

Neil Cerutti neilc at norwich.edu
Mon May 13 14:42:28 EDT 2013


On 2013-05-13, Skip Montanaro <skip at pobox.com> wrote:
>> 8. A programming language is low level when its programs
>> require attention to the irrelevant.
>>
>> So much a matter of debate. Indentation is irrelevant, why
>> should Python programs pay attention to it? Block delimiters
>> are irrelevant too, the interpreter should be able to figure
>> them out from the code layout. But this one is absolutely
>> right:
>
> I think "irrelevant" in this context means stuff like memory
> management.

I thought I liked that one at first, but upon reflection it
speciously inserts the word "irrelevant" in order to avoid
stating a tautology: A programming language is low level when its
programs require attention to low level details.

-- 
Neil Cerutti



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