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Zen Style Programming
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A program is a description of an abstract, general solution to a specific problem. It is typically written in a formal language called a programming language. The primary purpose of a program is to be understood by fellow human beings, thereby spreading knowledge. In order to achieve maximal readability,a programming language should have certain properties:
1. It should be small and uniform; 2. It should be free from ambiguity; 3. It should provide a high degree of abstraction; 4. It should be independent from concrete computer architectures.
The first points are no-brainers.If a language is too complex or has no uniform syntax and seman- tics,programmerswill have tolook up thingsin the manual perpetuallyinstead of concentratingon theactualproblem.If thelanguageintroducesambiguity,peoplewilleventuallychooseonepossible outcome internally and start writing programs that depend on their imagination instead of facts.
A high degree of abstraction means that the language should provide means of dealing with recurring tasks gracefully and without having to reinvent the wheel over and over again.This may seem like a contradiction to 1., but this text will show that this does not have to be the case.
A programming language that is used to describe algorithms in a readable way must be fully architecture-neutral. As soon as the language depends on features of a particular machine, the first principle is violated, because the knowledge that is necessary to understand a program then includes the knowledge of the underlying architecture.
Nils M Holm - Personal Name
NONE
Information Technology
English
2008
1-336
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