catflap.org Online Dictionary Query

  MFTL
       
          My Favourite Toy Language
       
       

  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".)