Re: Downwardly Scalable Systems

When I think about the utility of scaling systems down, I think more about
libraries, applications and operating systems than programming languages and
development tools.

But having used programming languages such as PL/1 and Ada where the language
features were so extensive that no one programmer really knew all of them
and everyone programmed in their own subset, I can say that giant languages
with a lot of features lead to maintenance issues in spite of their advantages
for initial coding.  Scaling down may help.

And who ever thought it was a good idea to add pointers to Fortran 90.
Engineers should never be allowed to touch pointers.  This is like giving
a Zippo lighter to a baby.  Scaling down is needed here.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."