[comp.sys.acorn] Scripting languages & IPC...

mwm@raven.relay.pa.dec.com (Mike (My Watch Has Windows) Meyer) (01/16/91)

Before this group appeared, there was some discussion of the Acorn
system software elsewhere, and I was trying to find out if there was a
scripting language available to users. Rather than getting answers to
my examples, I usually got "why would you want to do that, rather than
drop the xyzzy icon on foobar?".

Well, I have two answers:

1) I don't want to have to grab the mouse.

2) Because I'm not sitting in front of the computer.

For those wondering what I'm talking about, here's a real-life example:

I'm sitting in front of my system, talking to a terminal emulator,
dialed into a BBS system. I select the "download messages" menu entry
(probably from the keyboard shortcut - see answer #1), which starts
the appropriate script. I leave. The script deletes the messages file
for that bbs, downloads all the messages from the BBS, logs me out of
the BBS and hangs up the phone. Next, it checks to see if my hypertext
system is running, and starts it if it isn't. The script then parses
all the messages in the downloaded file, adding labels and links as
appropriate, and adds the messages to the hypertext document it
belongs in. Parsing the downloaded text  could be done on the fly, but
I'm paranoid - I want stuff on disk in case there are problems.

Note that the IPC is dealt with _in the script langauge_, not
elsewhere. Does the Acorn have anything along these lines?

	Thanx,
	<mike
--
And then I saw her...					Mike Meyer
She was a bright red '64 GTO				mwm@relay.pa.dec.com
With fins and gills like some giant piranha fish,	decwrl!mwm
Some obscene phallic symbol on wheels.