perelgut@turing.toronto.edu (Stephen Perelgut) (04/12/90)
A number of people on the net have mentionned Turing, especially in regard to introductory programming languages. Here is a brief summary that should answer all the questions Turing was developed at the University of Toronto in 1983 primarily in response to the general ill-feelings about available lanaguages/compilers. It is named after the late British mathematician Alan M. Turing. Turing has been used at the UofT since 1983 as the main introductory language. It has been a great success and is now in use in about 20 universities around the world. Turing is as simple as BASIC to learn and more powerful than Pascal. This led to its introduction in high school computer science classes in 1986. Turing is currently used in about 20% of Ontario high schools as well as a number of high schools and junior high schools in the U.S. The Turing Interpreter is currently available for PC-compatibles, Mac's and SUN workstations. The interpreter comes with a complete full-screen editor and integrated run-time and error-reporting. There are two textbooks for Turing: "Turing Tutorial Guide" (suitable for high schools, with a Teacher's Manual) and "Introduction to Computer Science Using the Turing Programming Language" (suitable for universities). There are also 6 electronic lessons and a demonstration all available on a diskette for PC's. A PC-compatible demonstration diskette is available to high schools, colleges and universities that are considering using Turing. A request on letterhead to: Holt Software Associates Inc. #305 - 203 College Street Toronto, Ontario M5T 1P9 will get you a 5.25" or 3.5" diskette and (if you ask) a copy of the Turing Tutorial Guide. The interpreter is available on a site-licence basis to schools and as individual software for PC's and Mac's. The individual copies cost $89. Licenced sites may qualify for discounts on software and textbooks. Schools interested in trying Turing can sign up for a free trial for one term/semester. The trial includes 20 copies of the "Turing Tutorial Guide", all the software and all other priviledges enjoyed by regular licenced sites. Contact Chris Stephenson at the above address for more details. Turing has been expanded to Turing-Plus (T+), which adds concurrency, exception handling, bit manipulation, etc. in as typesafe a method as possible. You can request a copy of the T+ technical report from: Technical Reports Computer Systems Research Institute University of Toronto #2001 - 10 King's College Rd. Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A4 There is also a fascinating book on language design and formal specifications of trustworthy languages. "Turing: Design and Definition", R.C. Holt et al, Prentice-Hall, 1988 ISBN 0-13-933136-0. I hope this answered all the various questions from the network.
tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) (04/12/90)
Yes, but is there: (1) an ANSI Turing? (2) Turbo Turing? (3) an Obfuscated Turing contest? (4) a Turing Shell? (5) a Turing Trigraphs Controversy? Anyway, thanks for the update. I'm sure employers everywhere are interested in knowing what kind of programmers Ontario's schools are Turing out. -- "UNIX should be used :: Tom Neff <tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET> or as an adjective." -- AT&T :: ...uunet!bfmny0!tneff (UUCP only)