Comments on "Language design for program manipulation"

The paper by E.A.T. Merks et al. (see ibid., vol. 18, p. 19-32, 1992) "Language design for program manipulation" identifies design principles for a procedural or object-oriented language whose programs will be easier to manipulate. However, it neglects to relate these design principles to existing, broader, design principles, and in some instances omits good examples of languages meeting their criteria. The author relates the new principles to more fundamental design principles, and provides the needed examples of languages meeting their criteria. Together these additions can better help designers of new programming languages that are amenable to manipulation.<>