Maybe another major isn't the answer. I took Math as a second major and it ended up sucking up alot of my free time in college with little benefit in return (in terms of marketability). Now maybe that just means that Math is definitely not a good choice , but I'd say one major is enough. Enjoy your time in college before you have to head out into the real world rather than breaking yourself in a second major. Otherwise, you might just find that you're burnt out on both subjects before you get a chance to apply any of your new found skills in the real world.
If you must take a second major, I'd suggest something to round out a liberal arts education such as History or English. And who knows, the fact that you have a well-rounded education may just give you the edge over others in the job market.
I believe the author addressed all of your points in his "silly article".
1) He did mean something different than what is available today with GCC. Rather than a new front or back end for a compiler, you could write things like optimization plugins for your language extensions.
2) He specifically mentions LISP as an example of an extensible language, but laments how it just hasn't caught on with mainstream programmers.
3) How are existing languages "easily machine parseable"? Have you tried writing a parser for a complex modern language? Without a tool to help you like lex/yacc? I didn't think so. The only reason existing languages are easy to parse is because the tools have already been created to do so. XML is also easily machine parseable by this definition since XML parsing libraries and tools are readily available. Also, he didn't argue that programmers should be typing XML programs in with 'vi', rather that IDE tools should process XML source code and provide a customizable view that is easy for the programmer to use and understand.
I don't know if I agree with the authors prediction that XML will serve as the base for new extensible languages. It certainly adds complexity and would make hand-coded optimizations more difficult. But his "silly article" seems to be grounded in a good bit of research and thought on the matter, as opposed to your post which indicates you probably dismissed the article before reading it thoroughly (if at all).
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Maybe another major isn't the answer. I took Math as a second major and it ended up sucking up alot of my free time in college with little benefit in return (in terms of marketability). Now maybe that just means that Math is definitely not a good choice , but I'd say one major is enough. Enjoy your time in college before you have to head out into the real world rather than breaking yourself in a second major. Otherwise, you might just find that you're burnt out on both subjects before you get a chance to apply any of your new found skills in the real world.
If you must take a second major, I'd suggest something to round out a liberal arts education such as History or English. And who knows, the fact that you have a well-rounded education may just give you the edge over others in the job market.
I believe the author addressed all of your points in his "silly article".
:-)
1) He did mean something different than what is available today with GCC. Rather than a new front or back end for a compiler, you could write things like optimization plugins for your language extensions.
2) He specifically mentions LISP as an example of an extensible language, but laments how it just hasn't caught on with mainstream programmers.
3) How are existing languages "easily machine parseable"? Have you tried writing a parser for a complex modern language? Without a tool to help you like lex/yacc? I didn't think so. The only reason existing languages are easy to parse is because the tools have already been created to do so. XML is also easily machine parseable by this definition since XML parsing libraries and tools are readily available.
Also, he didn't argue that programmers should be typing XML programs in with 'vi', rather that IDE tools should process XML source code and provide a customizable view that is easy for the programmer to use and understand.
I don't know if I agree with the authors prediction that XML will serve as the base for new extensible languages. It certainly adds complexity and would make hand-coded optimizations more difficult. But his "silly article" seems to be grounded in a good bit of research and thought on the matter, as opposed to your post which indicates you probably dismissed the article before reading it thoroughly (if at all).
And yes, I'm new here.