rmp@beta.lanl.gov (Robert M Pecherer) (05/26/89)
The following is a compilation of information related to the Interface Description Language (IDL) Processor. This information was originally posted to comp.compilers. I am reposting in response to a request from Jody Winston (jody@shell.uucp) forwarded from Rick Snodgrass (rts@cs.unc.edu). Please note that I am passing this information on as a service -- I'm neither advertising any product, nor endorsing its use -- in the case of the 2 commercial products, I recommend you request information directly. (1.) The IDL concept was extended and implemented at UNC; it was originally available for only a license fee, but the overhead became prohibitive and the sw is now actively marketed by UniPress Software 2025 Lincoln Highway Edison, NJ 08817 (201) 985-8000 (800)-222-0550 This company seems to be in the early stages of marketing IDL. The product is described as "substantially improved" over the former, UNC version. Ask for educational discounts (if appropriate). (2.) John Nestor was one of the originators of IDL (David Lamb and William Wulf were the others) and has formed a company to to sell 2 products: (quote) "Yes, my company, Persistent Data Systems is now selling two IDL Products, Mini IDL and Professional IDL. Professional IDL supports a superset of Mini IDL. Both are targetted to C and run on a wide variety of personal computers and Unix machines." John Nestor may be reached at nestor@sei.cmu.edu or (412)-963-1843. (3.) dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) thinks that ' ... there is a C-based IDL translator available from a university in Kentucky (?).' He further recommends: " comp.lang.idl - there has been some limited activity there recently." (4.) For more information on IDL, consider the following references. (The first is David A. Lamb's <dalamb@qucis.queensu.ca. CMU dissertation; the second is by Rick Snodgrass <rts@cs.unc.edu> who directed the work at UNC that produced the product sold by UniPress; the third is by (with) John Nestor <nestor@sei.cmu.edu>, one of the IDL originators.) a.) Lamb, David A., "Sharing intermediate representations," available from Carnegie-Mellon, Department of Computer Science (CMU-CS-83 129), 1983. b.) Snodgrass, Richard, "The Interface Description Language: Definition and Use", Computer Science Press, ISBN 0-7167-8198-0, 615+xv pages. (available from UniPress Software -- see above) c.) J. R. Nestor, J.M. Newcomer, P. Giannini and D. L. Stone, IDL: The Language and Its Implementation. Prentice-Hall, 1989. (5.) In addition to comp.lang.idl (usenet news), there is also an IDL mailing list: send email to info-idl-request@sei.cmu.edu (5/26/89 -- I've rec'd no response from this.) Rob Pecherer Los Alamos National Laboratory Center for Human Genome Studies Division T-10 ms K710 Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545 (505)665-1970