mk_language_shell.pl vs create_language.pl

[James E Keenan]

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos wrote:
> At 9/18/2010 01:22 PM, Jonathan Leto wrote:
>

> Or, as an alternative, has an interactive mode that asks questions.I'd love to get started using Parrot without first having to learn a 
bunch of inscrutable arguments and options.
>

Let me add a note of perspective here.

<rant>

In the first half of 2007, after I had worked on refactoring and writing 
tests for the Parrot build tools that were written in Perl 5 (of which 
pmc2c.pl is the only one remaining), particle suggested I do the same 
for Configure.pl.  At that time we had an 'interactive' mode to Parrot 
configuration that, if selected, would stop and ask you questions about 
how you wanted to configure Parrot for 7 of what were then 56 
configuration steps.

Have you ever used it?

[pause]

Ah, I thought not.

Let's have a show of hands of everyone who has tried to configure Parrot 
interactively?

[pause]

I see one hand raised from Lafayette, Indiana :-)

Well, that's the kind of response I got when I posed those questions in 
2007.  I wanted to junk the configuration aspect, because the code was 
difficult to maintain and had only one documented real-world user. 
(Since that user was the master of configuration, the interactive mode 
remains in Parrot to this day.)

The reality is that, for Parrot configuration, at least, you have to 
know a lot about Parrot in order to be able to intelligently answer the 
questions posed in the interactive mode.  My hunch is that an 
interactive create-a-language-on-top-of-Parrot program would have the 
same implicit requirement.

(Personal anecdote:   This time last year I upgraded the Debian version 
on my Linode.  Interactivity in the upgrade process was either forced 
upon me or I chose it; I can't remember which.  In any case, I just kept 
hitting "Return" to select the default options.  But the wonderful 
people at exim4 had, in their infinite wisdom, to flip what had 
previously been "default" -- and my mail on that server remains 
completely borked to this day.)

So my feeling is:  Though interactive configuration seems to be prima 
facie newbie-friendly, it's actually of value only to masters of the 
program being configured.   And the effort we put into maintaining 
interactive programs doesn't really pass a cost/benefit test.  There 
*should* be ways of getting people started on Parrot relatively quickly. 
  I just don't think interactive programs are one of them.

</rant>

Thank you very much.
kid51