This is true. But its still worth trying to write an interpreter for any language. I made up my own language which is a slimmed down and extremely consistent version of javascript. I was making the problem easy for myself but I still felt that I learned something - a way of thinking. Plus at the time my day job was throwing up some very unpretty problems. Writing the interpreter on the side generated momentum that kept me going through all the crap. I often think this may be the real benefit (intended or otherwise) of google's decision to let its employees work on a side project one day a week. It keeps them inspired. It also keeps them from getting creatively frustrated and taking it out on the product code by overengineering it.
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The prettiness of the solution is bounded on top by the prettiness of the problem. The problems we usually solve aren't very pretty.
Granted, some of that ugliness is of our own creation... but not all of it by any means.
This is true. But its still worth trying to write an interpreter for any language. I made up my own language which is a slimmed down and extremely consistent version of javascript. I was making the problem easy for myself but I still felt that I learned something - a way of thinking. Plus at the time my day job was throwing up some very unpretty problems. Writing the interpreter on the side generated momentum that kept me going through all the crap. I often think this may be the real benefit (intended or otherwise) of google's decision to let its employees work on a side project one day a week. It keeps them inspired. It also keeps them from getting creatively frustrated and taking it out on the product code by overengineering it.