Re: Downwardly Scalable Systems

ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) wrote in news:Java-20240413181713
@ram.dialup.fu-berlin.de:

Ben Collver <bencollver@tilde.pink> wrote or quoted:

programming languages that "scale down".

 
  David forgot to tell use what it means for a programming language
  to "scale down".
 

<snip>
I've worked for many companies that used C/C++ or even a wide variety of
languages with features that not every programmer would know.  For me,
scaling a language down is just limiting what language features you should
use in your program.

Teachers and beginning programmers do this in reverse.  They first learn what
a language can do and find some way to solve their particular problem.  Later
the learner can revisit their solutions to perhaps solve the problem with
less lines, new features they've learned, or just something new they'd like
to explore as some new concept.

Consider BASIC.  Learners start with print and perhaps math statements. 
Later they can add input, loops, and branching operations to build a more
complete program starting from their original programs goal.

Another reason to scale down a language is to accomodate more primative
versions of the same language or perhaps add support for different processors
or platforms.  Sometimes more advanced features of a language aren't
supported or available on a different target machine's compiler/interpreter.

I'm not sure what else "scaling down" a language might mean.