glenn@ll-xn.ARPA (Glenn Adams) (11/15/85)
A New Programming Language: SARTRE *SARTRE--Named after the late existential philosopher, SARTRE is an extremely unstructured language. Statements in SARTRE have no purpose; they just are. Thus SARTRE programs are left to define their own functions. SARTRE programmers tend to be boring and depressed and are no fun at parties. The SARTRE language has two basic data types, the EN-SOI and the POUR-SOI. The EN-SOI is a completely filled heap, whereas the POUR-SOI is a dynamic structure which never has the same value. The structures are accessed through the only operation defined in SARTRE, nihilation, which usually results in a ?BAD FAITH at PC 02AC040 error. Comparisons in SARTRE have a peculiar form in that the IF statement can take no arguments and simply reads IF; Similarly, assignments can only be of the form WHAT-IS := (NOT WHAT-IS); since in SARTRE the POUR-SOI is only, and exactly, what it is not. Although this sounds confusing, a background process, the NIHILATOR, is constantly running, making any such statements (or any statements at all, for that matter), completely meaningless. Programs in SARTRE do not terminate, of course, since there is No Exit. --Author Unknown -- Glenn Adams MIT Lincoln Laboratory ARPA: glenn@LL-XN.ARPA CSNET: glenn%ll-xn.arpa@csnet-relay UUCP: ...!seismo!ll-xn!glenn ...!ihnp4!houem!ll-xn!glenn
mf@ircam.UUCP (mf) (11/17/85)
In article <240@ll-xn.ARPA> glenn@ll-xn.ARPA (Glenn Adams) quotes
``A New Programming Language: SARTRE,'' of ``Author Unknown.''
If I am not mistaken, this is excerpted from a very funny article
about several hypothetical languages, called ``Laidback with (a) Fifth,''
by John Unger Zussman, published published in the Oct 4, 1982 issue
of Info World.
--Michael