jmcg (04/01/83)
We have been asked by someone at our granting agency to consider Mainsail as a language to support/convert to. Being UNIX types, we are a bit skeptical, but agreed to check it out (we do have a grant proposal in, after all). The main claim for Mainsail is that it is "The language of the future" (now where have I heard that before?) and that it was the implementation language for the Apple Lisa. Careful scanning of the available articles on the Lisa give me the impression it might be a nice machine but not one clue as to what the folks at Apple were using for software development (any bets that there is at least one UNIX+VAX?). Does anyone have better information? On Mainsail. Get advertising literature from Xidak (530 Oak Grove Ave., Suite 101, Menlo Park, CA 94025; (415)324-8745). It is an Algol-like language developed at the SUMEX Project at Stanford and given over to Xidak for development and marketing. It has roots in SAIL (Mainsail is MAchine INdependent SAIL) and its goal is software portability. A brief look through the language overview document gives the impression of a language that is verbose like Pascal, generally does everything that C does and adds some features like garbage collection, dynamic linking, and a specified file-IO system. Other than the verbosity, it looks fairly reasonable: better than Pascal, not as ridiculous as ADA, not revolutionary like Forth. Supported versions include VAX(VMS and UNIX) and Apollo(68000). Two things bother me. 1) The ONLY place to get it is Xidak. This is a "feature" to "guarantee consistent versions of Mainsail across processors and operating systems" and "eliminates the problem of incompatable versions". 2) They have, naturally, implemented their own editor, Mainedit, "a portable full-screen text editor, written in Mainsail, will support virtually any type of crt terminal". I'm not sure why these things bother me. What do you think? Has anyone out there had any contact with this? Is it going to have as much impact as UCSD Pascal/P-system, Forth, or UNIX? [Mainsail, Mainedit belong to Xidak; UNIX belongs to Bell Laboratories; VAX belongs to DEC; Lisa and Apple belong to Apple; SAIL probably belongs to Stanford; Forth and Pascal have been cut loose, as far as I know.] Jim McGinness sdcsvax!jmcg (619)452-4016 UC San Diego, Chemistry or decvax!jmcg