[comp.lang.misc] Definitive reference for the LOGO Programming Language?

flaps@dgp.toronto.edu (Alan J Rosenthal) (08/23/89)

I'm looking for definitive references for LOGO.  I would like a book or books
analogous to Kernighan and Ritchie for C, or Clocksin and Mellish for Prolog.
Are there any such?  I have found books of varying formality, but none that are
really precise (although I'm still following up a couple of references); most
books about logo are actually about education, and not really about the
programming language.  For example, I've not encountered a rigorous definition
of a logo token, especially with respect to the meaning of backslash as either
a special-character-preventer or the ``mod'' operator token.  Another example:
I don't have enough information to know whether or not the colon can be treated
as a macro which expands to "thing", space, quote.

e-mail please, and if you request I will summarize to the net.

thanks in advance,
ajr		<flaps@dgp.utoronto.ca>  or  <flaps@dgp.toronto.edu>
		flaps at utorgpu on bitnet

alms@brazil.cambridge.apple.com (Andrew L. M. Shalit) (08/23/89)

  I'm looking for definitive references for LOGO.  I would like a book or books
  analogous to Kernighan and Ritchie for C, or Clocksin and Mellish for Prolog.
  Are there any such?

You will not find such a thing because Logo is not a standardized language.
Dialects vary.

You might check out "Apple Logo" by Hal Abelson.  There is also the "Computer
Science: Logo Style" series by Brian Harvey.

Apple Logo (which grew out of the MIT Logo group) is probably the most
standard dialect.

ken@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Ken Johnson) (08/24/89)

In article <1989Aug22.173606.9539@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> flaps@dgp.toronto.edu (Alan J Rosenthal) writes:
>
>I'm looking for definitive references for LOGO.  I would like a book or books
>analogous to Kernighan and Ritchie for C, or Clocksin and Mellish for Prolog.
>Are there any such?

No, there are none.  Logo is not strictly defined by a formal syntax,
but has grown organically and there are a large number of different
dialects.  Some of the differences are pretty gross.  Seymour Papert (I
believe) holds the copyright on the word `Logo' and he is happy for
anyone to call more or less any product `Logo'. 

Use the reference manual for a decent Logo (Nimbus, IBM or Terrapin) as
a starting point. 

I have today posted a bibliography on Logo to comp.lang.misc, in case
anyone would like to have it.  This also contains a pointer to the Logo
mailing list. 


-- 
Ken Johnson, AI Applications Institute, 80 South Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1HN
E-mail ken@aiai.ed.ac.uk, phone 031-225 4464 extension 212
`I have read your article, Mr.  Johnson, and I am no wiser than when I
started.' -- `Possibly not, sir, but far better informed.'