taylor (03/14/83)
I am in the process of designing a new interpretive 'language' for the computers here at UCSD, and would like critical input from the UNIX community (note that critical does not preclude praise!). Specifically, I would like to create an overall environment for the computer that would not distinguish between 'the programming environment' and the 'command level environment'. Consider this; (user input is in single quotes) Hello David. > 'what files do I have?' file1, file2, file3 ... > 'save the following as abbreviation "big files";' [recording abbreviation "big files"] > 'what files do I have that are greater than 1000 bytes long?' > 'end of abbreviation.' [done recording] > 'show me abbreviation "big files"' what files do I have that are greater than 1000 bytes long? > 'sign me off.' Bye David. signed off at 6:45 pm, Saturday March 12th, 1983. Well...I admit that this is perhaps a long way down the road, but you can see what I mean by not distinguishing between the programming and the command-level environment. (I supose that die-hards will argue that the 'recording' mode is in fact a programming environment, but the transition is quite a bit more graceful that any I have ever used.) A comment on the concept of abbreviations; I think that it is fairly obvious that any program/routine in any language is simply an abbreviation of a set of commands, such that by typing the name of the abbreviation (or, more properly, the abbreviation) the computer will do all that you have told it, under that abbreviation. For example, "pr <filename>" could be done tediously by hand, by editing the file, but it is convenient to have a command sequence to do all the necessary stuff to the file automatically. What I would like to get from y'all is; o What programming languages/environments do you like? Why? o What particular functions you COULD NOT live without? Why? o What you dislike intensly (or even a little bit) about any of the languages/OS's that you have used... o Any other useful thoughts. (NO (NO!!) flames...I have neither the time nor the inclination.) Thanks a great deal! (I shall summarize to the net when I get a decent amount of answers) - Dave Taylor ..sdcsvax!taylor ps: Try to convince me that interpretive languages are not appropriate for computers. I need a good laugh. <not necessarily as sarcastic as it sounds.> <??>