Zeno <·····@nospam.earthlink.net> wrote:
>Is Dylan becoming more popular or less popular?
>I have recently had trials and tribulations with Eiffel, Lisp, and Oz.
>I was looking for something Lisp-like.
Have you considered Haskell or Ruby.
Both are growing steadily and have multiple multiplatform
implementations. Alternatively, I guess that Scheme is a viable
option.
israel raj thomas (·······@optushome.com.au) wrote:
: Zeno <·····@nospam.earthlink.net> wrote:
: >Is Dylan becoming more popular or less popular?
: >I have recently had trials and tribulations with Eiffel, Lisp, and Oz.
: >I was looking for something Lisp-like.
: Have you considered Haskell or Ruby.
: Both are growing steadily and have multiple multiplatform
: implementations. Alternatively, I guess that Scheme is a viable
: option.
Or Smalltalk. Try http://www.smalltalk.org
-Carl
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl Gundel ·····@libertybasic.com Shoptalk Systems
author of Liberty BASIC, twice a PC Magazine Awards Finalist!
http://www.libertybasic.com
------------------------------------------------------------------
>Or Smalltalk. Try http://www.smalltalk.org
And www.squeak.org for a quick fix of a free implementatin.
--
/ Peter Schuller, InfiDyne Technologies HB
PGP userID: 0x5584BD98 or 'Peter Schuller <··············@infidyne.com>'
Key retrival: Send an E-Mail to ·········@scode.infidyne.com
E-Mail: ··············@infidyne.com Web: http://scode.infidyne.com
On Thu, 28 Dec 2000 00:48:37 -0700, in you wrote:
> I hope FO is not dead !
>Shawn
1.The Functional Objects web site has not been updated for many
months.
2.Two email messages sent to them over 6 months ago have gone
unanswered.
3. Questions on these forums about the availabity of their Unix port
have not been answered for nearly 2 months.
If they are not dead, they must be very, very, very quiet.........
Bit of a shame.
They had a reasonable product.
Still, Ruby, Haskell, Lisp(I like the Scheme dialect) and Smalltalk
(especially Squeak ,the nice free implementation with morphic graphics
) are decent options.
Come on Lispers (Schemers) and Haskellers !
Let us convert a few ex-Dylanists before the Ruby mongers and the C
Sharpers grab them !
"israel raj thomas" <·······@optushome.com.au> wrote in message
·······································@4ax.com...
> Come on Lispers (Schemers) and Haskellers !
> Let us convert a few ex-Dylanists before the Ruby mongers and the C
> Sharpers grab them !
Lisp and its kissing cousins will never grab me. I can't stand the
fingernail parings that are the Lisp prefix notation. Haskell will only
grab me if it ever gets a half-decent hygienic macro scheme *and* a
half-decent implementation for Win32. (No, none of the current offerings
qualify on the second part.)
C# will probably be forced upon me at some point. My only position on that
is "it's better than Java". Of course that isn't saying a lot.
I don't know enough about Ruby to have much of an opinion in any direction.
What little I know about it tells me that it won't be replacing Dylan for
me, though. It seems to be a scripting language. It's a nice scripting
language and may actually replace Python for me like Python replaced Perl
before it, but I rather doubt it'll be replacing much else.
--
Michael T. Richter
"Be seeing you."
"Michael T. Richter" <···@ottawa.com> writes:
> "israel raj thomas" <·······@optushome.com.au> wrote in message
> ·······································@4ax.com...
>
> > Come on Lispers (Schemers) and Haskellers !
> > Let us convert a few ex-Dylanists before the Ruby mongers and the C
> > Sharpers grab them !
>
> Lisp and its kissing cousins will never grab me. I can't stand the
> fingernail parings that are the Lisp prefix notation.
Already the xposting has begat posts inappropriate to some of the
xposted ngs (comp.lang.scheme,comp.lang.lisp) and the beginnings of a
language war.
Followups to Dylan.
--
Tom Breton, http://world.std.com/~tob
Not using "gh" 1997-2000. http://world.std.com/~tob/ugh-free.html
Some vocal people in cll make frequent, hasty personal attacks, but if
you killfile them cll becomes usable.
Michael T. Richter <···@ottawa.com> wrote:
+---------------
| Lisp and its kissing cousins will never grab me. I can't stand the
| fingernail parings that are the Lisp prefix notation. Haskell will only
| grab me if it ever gets a half-decent hygienic macro scheme...
+---------------
You contradict yourself. It is precisely Lisp's "fingernail parings"
(list-based notation for program source) that make its powerful macros
so incredibly easy to write & maintain. Show me *any* other language[*]
with anything close to Lisp's builtin "read" primitive, not to mention
providing the *full* language at compile time to reflexively construct
arbitrary source programs.
-Rob
[*] Other than Scheme, which unlike some others here, I *do* consider
to be in the extended Lisp family, and to have the same advantages
for macro writing.
-----
Rob Warnock, 31-2-510 ····@sgi.com
SGI Network Engineering http://reality.sgi.com/rpw3/
1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy. Phone: 650-933-1673
Mountain View, CA 94043 PP-ASEL-IA
····@rigden.engr.sgi.com (Rob Warnock) writes:
> Michael T. Richter <···@ottawa.com> wrote:
> +---------------
> | Lisp and its kissing cousins will never grab me. I can't stand the
> | fingernail parings that are the Lisp prefix notation. Haskell will only
> | grab me if it ever gets a half-decent hygienic macro scheme...
> +---------------
>
> You contradict yourself. It is precisely Lisp's "fingernail parings"
> (list-based notation for program source) that make its powerful macros
> so incredibly easy to write & maintain. Show me *any* other language[*]
> with anything close to Lisp's builtin "read" primitive, not to mention
> providing the *full* language at compile time to reflexively construct
> arbitrary source programs.
Mumps might qualify on this point.
For those of you unfamiliar with Mumps, it provides such functions as
$TEXT(foo+3)
Return the third line of program text in routine foo (one-based
indexing).
XECUTE X
Interpret string X as if it were a line of program text.
-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----
Joe Marshall <···@content-integrity.com> wrote:
+---------------
| ····@rigden.engr.sgi.com (Rob Warnock) writes:
| > ... It is precisely Lisp's "fingernail parings"
| > (list-based notation for program source) that make its powerful macros
| > so incredibly easy to write & maintain. Show me *any* other language[*]
| > with anything close to Lisp's builtin "read" primitive, not to mention
| > providing the *full* language at compile time to reflexively construct
| > arbitrary source programs.
|
| Mumps might qualify on this point.
+---------------
I stand corrected. Yes, of course MUMPS[*] and SNOBOL were adequate to
the task -- and even MACRO-10, in it's own way. I should have said "any
other modern language that gets bandied about as an alternative to Lisp".
-Rob
[*] MUMPS == Massachusetts (General Hospital) Utility Multi-Programming
System, originally a pure character-by-character interpreter with one
datatype, the string, that had a tree-structured (multi-dimensional
associative array) disk-resident database tightly integrated into the
language. Imagine "Tcl", but with all of the global variables being
persistent database tables, and with built-in multiuser/multitasking
support.
MUMPS was extended over a number of years, and finally standardized in
1977 under the name "M". See <URL:http://www.mcenter.com/mtrc/mfaqhtm1.html>
and <URL:http://www.mcenter.com/mtrc/mfaqhtm2.html>
-----
Rob Warnock, 31-2-510 ····@sgi.com
SGI Network Engineering http://reality.sgi.com/rpw3/
1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy. Phone: 650-933-1673
Mountain View, CA 94043 PP-ASEL-IA
>| > ... It is precisely Lisp's "fingernail parings"
>| > (list-based notation for program source) that make its powerful macros
>| > so incredibly easy to write & maintain. Show me *any* other language[*]
>| > with anything close to Lisp's builtin "read" primitive, not to mention
>| > providing the *full* language at compile time to reflexively construct
>| > arbitrary source programs.
I am probably wrong, but I would have assumed that any language with
support for reflection could do that. Sure, Lisp has a far more
complete implementation of the metaobject protocol.
However, relection is found in :
Smalltalk
Self
Agora
Napier
and probably others...
On 29 Dec 2000 05:00:03 GMT, Rob Warnock <····@rigden.engr.sgi.com> wrote:
>Michael T. Richter <···@ottawa.com> wrote:
>+---------------
>| Lisp and its kissing cousins will never grab me. I can't stand the
>| fingernail parings that are the Lisp prefix notation. Haskell will only
>| grab me if it ever gets a half-decent hygienic macro scheme...
>+---------------
>
> You contradict yourself. It is precisely Lisp's "fingernail parings"
> (list-based notation for program source) that make its powerful
> macros so incredibly easy to write & maintain. Show me *any* other
> language[*] with anything close to Lisp's builtin "read" primitive,
> not to mention providing the *full* language at compile time to
> reflexively construct arbitrary source programs.
Try meta-ML:
http://www.cse.ogi.edu/PacSoft/projects/metaml/
Multistage programming, and the ML type system is augemented with
knowledge of what stage of compilation each expression belongs
to. It's very cool.
Neel
From: Mattias Waldau
Subject: Re: Where to now that Dylan is moribund ?
Date:
Message-ID: <m3ito31jey.fsf@fforum.se>
"Michael T. Richter" <···@ottawa.com> writes:
> Lisp and its kissing cousins will never grab me. I can't stand the
> fingernail parings that are the Lisp prefix notation. Haskell will only
> grab me if it ever gets a half-decent hygienic macro scheme *and* a
> half-decent implementation for Win32. (No, none of the current offerings
> qualify on the second part.)
>
I have started using Ocaml (www.ocaml.org). The reasons are
1. very fast
2. good implementation on win32 and linux
3. good and fast compilers, no slow compiles
4. interactive and compiled and native code compiled
5. good libraries
/mattias
"Mattias Waldau" <·······@fforum.se> wrote in message
···················@fforum.se...
> I have started using Ocaml (www.ocaml.org). The reasons are
> 1. very fast
> 2. good implementation on win32 and linux
> 3. good and fast compilers, no slow compiles
> 4. interactive and compiled and native code compiled
> 5. good libraries
I'll take a look at this. Thanks.
--
Michael T. Richter
"Be seeing you."
"Michael T. Richter" <···@ottawa.com> wrote in message
·····························@news4.rdc1.on.home.com...
> C# will probably be forced upon me at some point. My only position on
that
> is "it's better than Java". Of course that isn't saying a lot.
And even that is not true.. :-(
Could this please not be crossposted to all these groups? It seems
only relevant to comp.lang.dylan.
israel raj thomas <·······@optushome.com.au> writes:
>
> Come on Lispers (Schemers) and Haskellers !
> Let us convert a few ex-Dylanists before the Ruby mongers and the C
> Sharpers grab them !
What you're trying to start is called a "language war".
--
Tom Breton, http://world.std.com/~tob
Not using "gh" 1997-2000. http://world.std.com/~tob/ugh-free.html
Some vocal people in cll make frequent, hasty personal attacks, but if
you killfile them cll becomes usable.
Tom Breton <···@world.std.com> writes:
> Could this please not be crossposted to all these groups? It seems
> only relevant to comp.lang.dylan.
>
> israel raj thomas <·······@optushome.com.au> writes:
>
> >
> > Come on Lispers (Schemers) and Haskellers !
> > Let us convert a few ex-Dylanists before the Ruby mongers and the C
> > Sharpers grab them !
>
> What you're trying to start is called a "language war".
Yes. This is silly. But if what's happened since his post is a
language war, it's gotten people to mention some interesting recent
languages and extensions, with some intersting links.
From: Friedrich Dominicus
Subject: Re: Which language for me ?
Date:
Message-ID: <87y9x1ul48.fsf@frown.here>
israel raj thomas <·······@optushome.com.au> writes:
> Zeno <·····@nospam.earthlink.net> wrote:
> >Is Dylan becoming more popular or less popular?
> >I have recently had trials and tribulations with Eiffel, Lisp, and Oz.
> >I was looking for something Lisp-like.
If you want to have a Lisp why don't you take Common Lisp?
Regards
Friedrich
israel raj thomas <·······@optushome.com.au> writes:
> Zeno <·····@nospam.earthlink.net> wrote:
> >Is Dylan becoming more popular or less popular?
> >I have recently had trials and tribulations with Eiffel, Lisp, and Oz.
> >I was looking for something Lisp-like.
> Have you considered Haskell or Ruby. Both are growing steadily and
> have multiple multiplatform implementations. Alternatively, I guess
> that Scheme is a viable option.
How about elastiC? http://www.elasticworld.org
Happy crossposting to all,
--
David N. Welton
Personal: http://www.efn.org/~davidw/
Free Software: http://people.debian.org/~davidw/
Apache Tcl: http://tcl.apache.org
"David N. Welton" <······@prosa.it> wrote in message
···················@eugene.prosa.it...
>> Have you considered Haskell or Ruby. Both are growing steadily and
>> have multiple multiplatform implementations. Alternatively, I guess
>> that Scheme is a viable option.
> How about elastiC? http://www.elasticworld.org
As soon as I see "C-like syntax" I lose interest. I picked Dylan to
*ESCAPE* C-like syntax.
--
Michael T. Richter
"Be seeing you."
>> How about elastiC? http://www.elasticworld.org
>
>As soon as I see "C-like syntax" I lose interest. I picked Dylan to
>*ESCAPE* C-like syntax.
I guess that means that C# does not excite you :-)
"israel raj thomas" <·······@optushome.com.au> wrote in message
·······································@4ax.com...
>> As soon as I see "C-like syntax" I lose interest. I picked Dylan
>> to *ESCAPE* C-like syntax.
> I guess that means that C# does not excite you :-)
That would be one way of putting it, yes.... :-)
--
Michael T. Richter
"Be seeing you."
······@prosa.it (David N. Welton) wrote:
>
>israel raj thomas <·······@optushome.com.au> writes:
>
>> Zeno <·····@nospam.earthlink.net> wrote:
>> >Is Dylan becoming more popular or less popular?
>> >I have recently had trials and tribulations with Eiffel, Lisp, and Oz.
>> >I was looking for something Lisp-like.
>
>> Have you considered Haskell or Ruby. Both are growing steadily and
>> have multiple multiplatform implementations. Alternatively, I guess
>> that Scheme is a viable option.
>
>How about elastiC? http://www.elasticworld.org
>
How about SNOBOL4. Anyone remember that one?
From: David Casperson
Subject: Re: Which language for me ?
Date:
Message-ID: <92lhkn$s98@bobs.unbc.ca>
In article <················@News.CIS.DFN.DE>,
Costas Menico <······@springmail.com> wrote:
>...
>How about SNOBOL4. Anyone remember that one?
Of course, and Spitbol. Icon is still alive and running, but it doesn't
quite have the reflectivity of SNOBOL with its CODE statements.
David
--
Dr. David Casperson | ······@unbc.ca
Department of Mathematics & Computer Science | (250) 960-6672
Faculty of Science |
College of Science and Management |
······@eclipse.unbc.ca (David Casperson) wrote:
>In article <················@News.CIS.DFN.DE>,
>Costas Menico <······@springmail.com> wrote:
>>...
>>How about SNOBOL4. Anyone remember that one?
>
>
>Of course, and Spitbol. Icon is still alive and running, but it doesn't
>quite have the reflectivity of SNOBOL with its CODE statements.
SNOBOL is so elegant and Icon is such a monstrosity (although well
intentioned). I believe Prof. Griswold took the wrong turn in going
with Icon. I don't understand why he didn't just use the effort and
money to upgrade the SNOBOL language. I once wrote a cross assembler
with this in a few lines of code. And it could and still can run
circles around any language when it comes to text processing and
manipulation.
Costas
Costas Menico wrote in message <·················@News.CIS.DFN.DE>...
>······@eclipse.unbc.ca (David Casperson) wrote:
>
>>In article <················@News.CIS.DFN.DE>,
>>Costas Menico <······@springmail.com> wrote:
>>>...
>>>How about SNOBOL4. Anyone remember that one?
>>
>>
>>Of course, and Spitbol. Icon is still alive and running, but it doesn't
>>quite have the reflectivity of SNOBOL with its CODE statements.
>
>SNOBOL is so elegant and Icon is such a monstrosity (although well
>intentioned). I believe Prof. Griswold took the wrong turn in going
>with Icon. I don't understand why he didn't just use the effort and
>money to upgrade the SNOBOL language. I once wrote a cross assembler
>with this in a few lines of code. And it could and still can run
>circles around any language when it comes to text processing and
>manipulation.
It's incredible to me that a monstrosity like Perl could evolve
in the face of SNOBOL, which could have been recycled to
do everything Perl could, only so much better.
Hi!
In comp.lang.lisp Scott McKay <···@mediaone.net> wrote:
> Costas Menico wrote in message <·················@News.CIS.DFN.DE>...
>>······@eclipse.unbc.ca (David Casperson) wrote:
>>
>>>In article <················@News.CIS.DFN.DE>,
>>>Costas Menico <······@springmail.com> wrote:
>>>>...
>>>>How about SNOBOL4. Anyone remember that one?
>>>
>>>
>>>Of course, and Spitbol. Icon is still alive and running, but it doesn't
>>>quite have the reflectivity of SNOBOL with its CODE statements.
>>
>>SNOBOL is so elegant and Icon is such a monstrosity (although well
>>intentioned). I believe Prof. Griswold took the wrong turn in going
>>with Icon. I don't understand why he didn't just use the effort and
>>money to upgrade the SNOBOL language. I once wrote a cross assembler
>>with this in a few lines of code. And it could and still can run
>>circles around any language when it comes to text processing and
>>manipulation.
> It's incredible to me that a monstrosity like Perl could evolve
> in the face of SNOBOL, which could have been recycled to
> do everything Perl could, only so much better.
Well... as a Perl-Programmer I was happy to do things
easy, what in C is a horror of wasted time to get
to a program-solution.
For a long time I looked to Lisp and such languages, but
wasn't motivated enough to learn them.
After using Perl with OO, I thought: well, that's nice.
But only some small amount of time later, I'm annoyed
on the low level of abstraction, that OO gives me here.
That was the starting point of learning scheme (some
days ago).
I heard some names of Lisp-Dialects, but what is SNOBOL?
Is it a Lisp-Dialect? Or is it a language, implemented
in a Lisp-dialect?
I'm now very interested in it, because you compared it to
Perl...
What is SNOBOL? What is it good for?
Who use this language?
Is it free code? (So one may pick it up...)
Ciao,
Oliver
--
Scheme vs. JAVA => http://www-aig.jpl.nasa.gov/public/home/gat/lisp-study.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.belug.org/~ob
Oliver Bandel wrote in message <·········@first.in-berlin.de>...
>
>What is SNOBOL? What is it good for?
>Who use this language?
>Is it free code? (So one may pick it up...)
>
Hmm, what is SNOBOL? It's been around for a long time,
maybe 1968 or so? It's like Prolog for strings. I really mean
that: it's got all kinds of cool pattern matching and replacement
with "cut" and "fail" operators, back-tracking, etc. I personally
think it's one of the most interesting languages, in a class with
Prolog and APL. It's one of those languages that was not
only way ahead of its time, but probably quite a bit "beside"
its time as well.
I haven't used it for years, so I couldn't say who uses it any
more.
I dunno where you can pick it up, tho' I was just sent mail
saying that it is "widely available as source code".
In article <······················@typhoon.ne.mediaone.net>,
Scott McKay <···@mediaone.net> wrote:
>Oliver Bandel wrote in message <·········@first.in-berlin.de>...
>>
>>What is SNOBOL? What is it good for?
.
.
.
>I dunno where you can pick it up, tho' I was just sent mail
>saying that it is "widely available as source code".
>
>
Presumably
<URL: http://www.idiom.com/free-compilers/LANG/Snobol4-1.html >
is what people have in mind. However, the primary location at
cs.arizona.edu is refusing FTP connections. Maybe someone will
update this thread soon with a report on the prospects for this
museum piece.
--
Cameron Laird <······@NeoSoft.com>
Business: http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal: http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html
In article <··················································@lp.airnews.net>,
I mumbled:
>In article <······················@typhoon.ne.mediaone.net>,
>Scott McKay <···@mediaone.net> wrote:
>>Oliver Bandel wrote in message <·········@first.in-berlin.de>...
>>>
>>>What is SNOBOL? What is it good for?
> .
> .
> .
>>I dunno where you can pick it up, tho' I was just sent mail
>>saying that it is "widely available as source code".
>>
>>
>
>Presumably
><URL: http://www.idiom.com/free-compilers/LANG/Snobol4-1.html >
>is what people have in mind. However, the primary location at
>cs.arizona.edu is refusing FTP connections. Maybe someone will
.
.
.
The *real* place to look for a SNOBOL4 processor is
<URL: ftp://ftp.cs.arizona.edu/snobol4 >. Thanks
to Gregg Townsend for this correction. Presumably
someone at the Free Compiler project will want to
update the pointers there.
--
Cameron Laird <······@NeoSoft.com>
Business: http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal: http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html
From: Phil Budne
Subject: Re: SNOBOL4 availability (was: Which language for me ?)
Date:
Message-ID: <92o8gd$6iu$1@news3.bu.edu>
In article <··················································@lp.airnews.net>,
Cameron Laird <······@starbase.neosoft.com> wrote:
>In article <··················································@lp.airnews.net>,
>I mumbled:
>>In article <······················@typhoon.ne.mediaone.net>,
>>Scott McKay <···@mediaone.net> wrote:
>>>Oliver Bandel wrote in message <·········@first.in-berlin.de>...
>>>>What is SNOBOL? What is it good for?
>>>I dunno where you can pick it up, tho' I was just sent mail
>>>saying that it is "widely available as source code".
>>Presumably<URL:http://www.idiom.com/free-compilers/LANG/Snobol4-1.html>
>>is what people have in mind. However, the primary location at
>>cs.arizona.edu is refusing FTP connections. Maybe someone will
>The *real* place to look for a SNOBOL4 processor is
><URL: ftp://ftp.cs.arizona.edu/snobol4 >. Thanks
>to Gregg Townsend for this correction. Presumably
>someone at the Free Compiler project will want to
>update the pointers there.
I've tried to get the idiom information updated, but never succeeded.
I've been meaning to do a new release of C-Macro-SNOBOL4, so I gave up
trying to have the information updated with "oh so soon to be old"
information.
Even the information at ftp.cs.arizona.edu can be dated. Griswold has
retired, and while he's still there, SNOBOL4 is not a primary interest
of his these days!
Better maintained places to look are;
www.snobol4.com Catspaw, purveyors of excellent Macro SPITBOL
based products
people.ne.mediaone.net/philbudne/snobol.html
My SNOBOL4 resources page, including pointers
to my free Macro SNOBOL4 in C port.
There is also a SNOBOL4 mailing list (mentioned on the above pages),
where, sometimes, we even discuss SNOBOL4!
-phil
There is a SPITBOL library that is somehow related to SNOBOL that
is part of the GNAT Ada distribution.
Al
Cameron Laird wrote:
>
> In article <······················@typhoon.ne.mediaone.net>,
> Scott McKay <···@mediaone.net> wrote:
> >Oliver Bandel wrote in message <·········@first.in-berlin.de>...
> >>
> >>What is SNOBOL? What is it good for?
> .
> .
> .
> >I dunno where you can pick it up, tho' I was just sent mail
> >saying that it is "widely available as source code".
> >
> >
>
> Presumably
> <URL: http://www.idiom.com/free-compilers/LANG/Snobol4-1.html >
> is what people have in mind. However, the primary location at
> cs.arizona.edu is refusing FTP connections. Maybe someone will
> update this thread soon with a report on the prospects for this
> museum piece.
> --
>
> Cameron Laird <······@NeoSoft.com>
> Business: http://www.Phaseit.net
> Personal: http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html
"Scott McKay" <···@mediaone.net> writes:
> Hmm, what is SNOBOL? It's been around for a long time,
> maybe 1968 or so? It's like Prolog for strings. I really mean
> that: it's got all kinds of cool pattern matching and replacement
> with "cut" and "fail" operators, back-tracking, etc. I personally
> think it's one of the most interesting languages, in a class with
> Prolog and APL. It's one of those languages that was not
> only way ahead of its time, but probably quite a bit "beside"
> its time as well.
>
> I haven't used it for years, so I couldn't say who uses it any
> more.
When I was a young, impudent pup of a wanna-be programmer not so many
years ago I did some work for a UIC professor who was working on a
java applet for some educational website. I was sent in by our sales
staff to help him with some Java questions he had, tho I was obviously
much less of a programer, just more fmailiar with the JVM and it's
idiocies. This professor whose name I cannot recall had writting most
of the logic of the application in SNOBOL and had SNOBOL generating
the required Java code.
Like I said, I was a brash young loser of a coder and did not fully
understand the beauty of his solution. Now I'm a brash, older loser
of a coder and I wish that I had shown him the proper respect, and had
learned what I could about SNOBOL from him.
--
Craig Brozefsky <·····@red-bean.com>
LispWeb -- Mailing list for Lisp Based Web Development
Homepage: http://www.red-bean.com/lispweb
About the only place I could find it was at http://www.snobol4.com
You can also view ftp://ftp.snobol4.com/specshet.pdf
And the best place to check is with Catspaw ·····@snobol4.com and
719-539-3884.
It would be great if someone revived it. The official book was "The
SONOBOL4 Programming Language" by Grisowld/Poage/Polonsky,1971 also
called the "Green Book" and of course out-of-print. However if you get
a copy of SNOBOL4 from Catspaw it comes with a very complete printed
manual. There is also a book called "The Macro Implementation of
SNOBOL4". Excellent book for understanding implementation of
interpreters.
Basically the language revolves around pattern matching. Here is a
very basic sample.
text = 'trees are green and the sky is blue'
color = 'red' | 'green' | 'blue'
loop1 text color = 'what?' :s(loop1)
output = text
the variable text now holds:
'trees are what? and the sky is what?'
Every statement in SNOBOL4 either Succeeds or Fails. So based on the
success or failure you can optionally add a branching field added to
the end of a statement:
getmore text = text input :s(getmore) f(donewithit)
donewithit output = text :(enough)
or you can do things using indirection:
month = 'December'
December = 12
output = $month
Now output has the number 12.
I think the basic weakness of the language is that branching always
requires a label. Its kind of like goto's. There is no if/then/else
type of structure. If this could be overcome by some nice clean synatx
addition then adding a GUI interface and maybe multithreading would
make it into a great contender.
Hope this helps.
costas