PL DESIGN
   (1) leave it to the compiler - design the language such that the compiler
           does most of the problem solving, testing, etc.

   (2) make the progammer say once, at most

LANGUAGE DESIGN CRITERIA

(1) expressive power
            classes: C, C++, Java
            strings: Fortran, C, Perl

(2) well-defined syntax and semantics - no implementation dependence
          variable initialization
          divide by zero

(3) reliability - ability to detect syntactic and logical errors
         multiple occurrences of the same information -  in C
                        #include "myinclude.h"

                        myfun(myargs);


         lexical incoherence - in Pascal
                    program longDist(input, output);
                         var result: int;
(*        HUGE PROCEDURE *)
                    begin
                         result = 10.5;
                    end.

(4) fast translation - how many passes
          example in C
                int f2(int);        // WHY?

                int f1(int x) {
                    f2(x);
                }

                int f2(int x) {
                    /* some code */
                }

(5) efficient object code - make the programmer supply as much information
      as possible
            x[a++] in C

(6) orthogonality
            non-interacting features: "0.000" in Perl
                  interaction of string <-> num conversion & value & boolean
            no redundant features:
                     a++ in C
                     comments in C, C++

(7) Machine independence: especially primitive types
            Java

(8) Consistency with commonly used notions, "law of least surprise"
           25 + 1/3 = 5.333333
           9 < 8 < 7 in PL/1

(9) subsets - "what you don't know won't hurt you"

(10) correctness & standards

Horowitz's 10 steps to design a language

(1) choose an application area  // will be given
(2) make the design committee as small as possible  // 3
(3) choose some precise design goals
(4) release version one to small set of people
(5) revise language definition // design project
(6) build a prototype compiler
(7) revise language definition again
(8) write the manual // write reports
(9) write a good compiler and distribute it
(10) write primers