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mftl
(foldoc) | My Favourite Toy Language
MFTL
(MFTL) Describes a talk on a {programming
language} design that is heavy on syntax (with lots of
BNF), sometimes even talks about semantics (e.g. {type
systems}), but rarely, if ever, has any content (see
content-free). More broadly applied to talks - even when
the topic is not a programming language --- in which the
subject matter is gone into in unnecessary and meticulous
detail at the sacrifice of any conceptual content. "Well, it
was a typical MFTL talk".
2. A language about which the developers are passionate (often
to the point of prosyletic zeal) but no one else cares about.
Applied to the language by those outside the originating
group. "He cornered me about type resolution in his MFTL."
The first great goal in the mind of the designer of an MFTL is
usually to write a compiler for it, then bootstrap the design
away from contamination by lesser languages by writing a
compiler for it in itself. Thus, the standard put-down
question at an MFTL talk is "Has it been used for anything
besides its own compiler?". On the other hand, a language
that *cannot* be used to write its own compiler is beneath
contempt.
Doug McIlroy once proposed a test of the generality and
utility of a language and the operating system under which
it is compiled: "Is the output of a Fortran program
acceptable as input to the Fortran compiler?" In other words,
can you write programs that write programs? Alarming numbers
of (language, OS) pairs fail this test, particularly when the
language is Fortran. Aficionados are quick to point out that
Unix (even using Fortran) passes it handily. That the test
could ever be failed is only surprising to those who have had
the good fortune to have worked only under modern systems
which lack OS-supported and -imposed "file types".
See break-even point, toolsmith.
(1995-03-07)
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mftl
(jargon) | MFTL
/M·F·T·L/
[abbreviation: ‘My Favorite Toy Language’]
1. adj. Describes a talk on a programming language design that is heavy on
the syntax (with lots of BNF), sometimes even talks about semantics (e.g.,
type systems), but rarely, if ever, has any content (see content-free).
More broadly applied to talks — even when the topic is not a programming
language — in which the subject matter is gone into in unnecessary and
meticulous detail at the sacrifice of any conceptual content. “Well, it was
a typical MFTL talk”.
2. n. Describes a language about which the developers are passionate (often
to the point of proselytic zeal) but no one else cares about. Applied to
the language by those outside the originating group. “He cornered me about
type resolution in his MFTL.”
The first great goal in the mind of the designer of an MFTL is usually to
write a compiler for it, then bootstrap the design away from contamination
by lesser languages by writing a compiler for it in itself. Thus, the
standard put-down question at an MFTL talk is “Has it been used for
anything besides its own compiler?” On the other hand, a (compiled)
language that cannot even be used to write its own compiler is beneath
contempt. (The qualification has become necessary because of the increasing
popularity of interpreted languages like Perl and Python.) See {
break-even point}. (On a related note, Doug McIlroy once proposed a test of
the generality and utility of a language and the operating system under
which it is compiled: “Is the output of a FORTRAN program acceptable as
input to the FORTRAN compiler?” In other words, can you write programs that
write programs? (See toolsmith.) Alarming numbers of (language, OS) pairs
fail this test, particularly when the language is FORTRAN; aficionados are
quick to point out that Unix (even using FORTRAN) passes it handily. That
the test could ever be failed is only surprising to those who have had the
good fortune to have worked only under modern systems which lack
OS-supported and -imposed “file types”.)
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