[net.lang] Info. request: sail-mainsail

michaelo@tektronix.UUCP (Michael O'Hair) (06/13/85)

[ Bug lunch. ]

I'm looking for information on SAIL and/or MAINSAIL.

What I know (very little) about SAIL: ALGOL-based, designed to 
act as a host language for CODASYL, is based on the article in
the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, & Cybernetics, April '79.
I would assume that there have been changes in the last 6 years.

Some basic questions:
	Are they related? If so, in what way?
	What is/was their focus? Has it changed?
	Are there any books available? 

Are there any users, gurus, etc., out there?


			Michael O'Hair
			Tektronix, Inc.
			P.O. Box 500
			Beaverton, OR 97077
			M/S 50-709
			1-503-627-6049
			tektronix!michaelo

david@ukma.UUCP (David Herron, NPR Lover) (06/15/85)

In article <5433@tektronix.UUCP> michaelo@tektronix.UUCP (Michael O'Hair) writes:
>What I know (very little) about SAIL: ALGOL-based, designed to 
>act as a host language for CODASYL, is based on the article in
>the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, & Cybernetics, April '79.
>I would assume that there have been changes in the last 6 years.

There was a language I used on a DEC-10 by the same name that
was developed at Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
Is this the same language?   (It also stood for "Stare At It Later",
but that's another story)
-- 
--- David Herron
--- ARPA-> ukma!david@ANL-MCS.ARPA or ukma!david<@ANL-MCS> 
---	   or david%ukma.uucp@anl-mcs.arpa
---        Or even anlams!ukma!david@ucbvax.arpa
--- UUCP-> {ucbvax,unmvax,boulder,oddjob}!anlams!ukma!david
---        {ihnp4,decvax,ucbvax}!cbosgd!ukma!david

	"It's *Super*User* to the rescue!"

matt@oddjob.UUCP (Matt Crawford) (06/16/85)

michaelo@tektronix.UUCP (Michael O'Hair) writes:
>
>I'm looking for information on SAIL and/or MAINSAIL.
> ...
>	Are they related? If so, in what way?
> ...

I played with SAIL a little on the DEC-20's here, and I have the
manual for it.  The extensions to a very algol-like language include:
	an enormous macro facility (compared to cpp)
	in-line assembly, if you want to risk it
	new data types ITEM and an associative store of ordered
	 triples of ITEMs.  There is a FOREACH statement and a
	 function type MATCHING to search the associative store
	 for triples satisfying certain conditions.

Does MAINSAIL have the latter feature?  I don't know.
_____________________________________________________
Matt		University	crawford@anl-mcs.arpa
Crawford	of Chicago	ihnp4!oddjob!matt