HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: pgh@bnr.co.uk (Peter Hamer)
Subject: Matematical notation (was Goals, Cost, and Flexibility) 
Reply-To: pgh@bnr.co.uk (Peter Hamer)
Organization: BNR Europe Limited, London Road, Harlow, Essex, GB
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 10:57:41 GMT

In the referenced article izahi@bsc.no (Raul Izahi Lopez Hernandez) writes:
>In article <1992Sep29.232852.22456@CS.ORST.EDU> crowl@jade.CS.ORST.EDU (Lawrence Crowl) writes:
>>>This is one of the problems with the current HLLs, the inability to use
>>>"mathematical" type notation.
>>
>>I argue just the opposite.  One of the _advantages_ of current HLLs is the
>>inability to use "mathematical" type notation.  Mathematical notation is
>>ambiguous and highly dependent on context.  Current HLLs don't have this
> ^^^^^^^^^ ?????????
>>problem.  Furthermore, we don't want to introduce ambiguity and bizzare
>>context into HLLs.
>
>   Can you show me how Mathematical notation can be ambiguous and highly
>dependent on context?
>
> ...
>
>   Maybe I don't understand what you meant.


I have mixed views on this topic. 

I desperately want to be able to code at a suitable level of abstraction,
and maths has traditionally done this. However transcribing formulae from
books can be difficult ...

1) Maths, and physics, has tended to use single-letter names for variables.
   [Often using multiple fonts and alphabets as they run out of names.] It
   is difficult to see how the current layout rules generalise to longer
   variable names.

2) Many formulae depend on type-setting facilities [ie graphical layout] 
   to indicate their meaning; eg a/b+c.

3) Often excessively subtle clues are given to indicate important facts.
   The thickness of the blanks indicates if `cos abcd' means (cos(a*b))*c*d
   or any of the other potential parsings. Deciding where summations,
   integrals, etc end can be similarly difficult.
   
   *Many* times I have had to re-derive a published formula to understand
   how it should be parsed.

4) The notation used in any particular book is often, at least in part,
   unique to that book. This is probably also true of the type-setting rules.

So. I would like to be able to code in the most appropriate notation.
Often this will be maths-like. To do so properly would require at least
the layout facilities of something like [La]TeX; and [La]TeX source is
hardly the model of clarity [I use it, its the best game in town]. Even
then traditional maths type-setting rules probably do not always make the
meaning of the formula sufficiently clear (this may not be true if you are
a professional typesetter), and the current type-setting rules almost
certainly break-down for `long' names.

Regards, Peter

PS Experiences mainly from from statistics books, and the fundamental
problems seem to be implicit multiplication and subliminal bracketing. 
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
From: galaad@broue.rot.qc.ca (Colin Surprenant)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Wanted: SIMULA - UNIX/DOS
Date: 27 Sep 92 01:44:41 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Groupe de Recherche Operationnelle en Telecommunication (ROT)
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

I am looking for an implementation of the language SIMULA under UNIX and/or DOS.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
galaad@rot.qc.ca     | Colin Surprenant       |  "Beer : it's not just for 
                     |                        |   breakfast anymore...!"
IP: 192.77.49.131    | ROT inc.                --------------------------------
                     | Recherche Operationnelle en Telecommunication
                     |
Voice: 514-685-7575  | Synerlogic (a Anderson Consulting Division)
Fax:   514-685-7692  | Montreal, Quebec
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: ccmlh@buitc.bu.edu (Mark Hayes)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: PL/1 book references wanted
Date: 4 Oct 92 05:24:21 GMT
Organization: Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
Originator: ccmlh@buitc.bu.edu

I'm looking for a book on PL/1, for someone who knows nothing about
that particular language, but is experienced in a number of others,
including IBM REXX (which is hear is somewhat PL/1-like).

Can anyone help out with a suggestion? Replies by private mail
would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Mark Hayes


Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
From: strobl@gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl)
Subject: Re: Wanted: SIMULA - UNIX/DOS
Organization: GMD, Sankt Augustin, Germany
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 15:03:20 GMT

In <1hwnjT#BG2BrQ=galaad@broue.rot.qc.ca> galaad@broue.rot.qc.ca (Colin Surprenant) writes:

>I am looking for an implementation of the language SIMULA under UNIX and/or DOS.

I own a copy of simula for OS/2, which I got directly from Simula a.s.

Simula a.s.
Postboks 4403 - Torshov
N- 0402 OSLO 4
Norway

Tel (+472) 15 67 10
Fax (+472) 15 60 51

I got a letter from them about a possible upgrade to 108.4.4 of
PC Simula in 16.november 1990 (my own copy is older). 

That letter lists three different versions:

DOS, 
OS/2 and Xenix/386 and
UNIX/386.

Hope this helps.

Wolfgang Strobl
#include <std.dislcaimer.hpp>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc,comp.music
From: Daniel.Parmet@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Daniel Parmet)
Subject: MIDI Programming
Organization: Extended Bulletin Board Service
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 18:03:17 GMT

I am interested in developing an application (Macintosh) which will provide
a MIDI between the Mac and the MIDI device.

The problem, however, is that I know very little about the MIDI message
format.  What I would like to know is if anyone has information or code
which describes or implements sending MIDI messages.  I would also like
a list of possible MIDI commands and messages.

Please respond to upkuba@mcs.drexel.edu.

Thanks a lot.

--
   The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
     North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
        Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
           internet:  bbs.oit.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
From: sdm@cs.brown.edu (Scott Meyers)
Subject: Two questions
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 16:49:36 GMT

Two questions about miscellaneous languages:

1.  Regarding the language occam, I have this sample program fragment:

        WHILE TRUE
           SEQ
              PAR
                 south ! x
                 east ? sum
                 temp := a * x
              PAR
                 west ! sum + temp
                 north ? x

    All I really need to know is this:  is the language case-sensitive?  In
    particular, can "PAR" above be also written "Par", "par", etc?

2.  Some languages allow for multiple assignments as part of the same
    statement, where the semantics are that all right-hand sides are
    evaluated before any left-hand sides.  To swap x and y, then, you can
    just write this:

        x = y, y = x

    This is completely deterministic -- it's not the same as saying that
    the two assignments are carried out in parallel.

    Anyway, I've forgotten where I read about this construct (I thought it
    was CSP, but I appear to have been mistaken), and I'd like to give a
    citation for one or more languages that use it.  Obviously, the
    language that originated the construct would be nice, but I'm not that
    picky.   Anybody know what language(s) support this construct?

Thanks,

Scott


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What do you say to a convicted felon in Providence?  "Hello, Mr. Mayor."
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
From: Tom Christiansen <tchrist@convex.COM>
Subject: Re: Two questions
Originator: tchrist@pixel.convex.com
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 02:54:26 GMT
Reply-To: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen)
Organization: Convex Computer Corporation, Colorado Springs, CO
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

From the keyboard of sdm@cs.brown.edu (Scott Meyers):
:2.  Some languages allow for multiple assignments as part of the same
:    statement, where the semantics are that all right-hand sides are
:    evaluated before any left-hand sides.  To swap x and y, then, you can
:    just write this:
:
:        x = y, y = x
:
:    This is completely deterministic -- it's not the same as saying that
:    the two assignments are carried out in parallel.
:
:    Anyway, I've forgotten where I read about this construct (I thought it
:    was CSP, but I appear to have been mistaken), and I'd like to give a
:    citation for one or more languages that use it.  Obviously, the
:    language that originated the construct would be nice, but I'm not that
:    picky.   Anybody know what language(s) support this construct?

Perl supports multiple assignments:

    ($x, $y) = (Peanuts, Pecans);
means
    $x = Peanuts; 
    $y = Pecans;

and also allows you to swap values as you're looking for:

    ($x, $y) = ($y, $x);

--tom
-- 
    Tom Christiansen      tchrist@convex.com      convex!tchrist

"We're going to have the best  educated Americans in the world!"    
	    --Dan Quayle                       
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
From: dmason@plg.uwaterloo.ca (Dave Mason)
Subject: Re: Two questions
Organization: /u2/dmason/.organization
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 14:34:45 GMT

In article <1992Oct2.164936.20520@cs.brown.edu> sdm@cs.brown.edu (Scott Meyers) writes:

> 2.  Some languages allow for multiple assignments as part of the same
>     statement, where the semantics are that all right-hand sides are
>     evaluated before any left-hand sides.  To swap x and y, then, you can
>     just write this:
> 
>         x = y, y = x
> 
>     This is completely deterministic -- it's not the same as saying that
>     the two assignments are carried out in parallel.

Dijkstra's guarded command language, although the syntax is:
	x,y := y,x

@book{gries:science,
	title="The Science of Programming",
	author="David Gries",
	publisher="Springer-Verlag",
	year=1981,
	address=SV-addr,
	isbn="0-387-90641-X",
	call="QA76.6.G747"
}

SML also allows this, with syntax:
	val (x,y) = (y,x)

@book{
	AUTHOR={Robin Milner and Mads Tofte and Robert Harper},
	TITLE={The definition of Standard ML},
	address={Cambridge, Mass.},
	publisher={MIT Press},
	year=1990,
	ISBN="0262132559"
}

	../Dave
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc,comp.sources.d,comp.archives.admin,news.answers
From: oz@ursa.sis.yorku.ca (Ozan Yigit)
Subject: tags and tag checking...
Organization: York U. Student Information Systems Project
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 14:10:37 GMT

Has there been any [more] interesting and/or more exhaustive study of
tags and type checking in lisp, and various software approaches since
the publication of Steenkiste and Hennessy[1]? I would appreciate any
references to published or ongoing work. [Yes, I have looked at Lee's
collection[2], which has a rewrite of [1], and other useful bits, but
I would like some more refs.]

Please respond via email. I will summarize.

thanks.		oz
---
[1] Steenkiste & Hennessy
    Tags and tag checking in Lisp: hardware & software
    ASPLOS-2, 50-59. 1987

[2] Peter Lee (editor)
    Topics in Advanced Language Implementation
    The MIT Press, 1991
---
we don't need a professor of the Art of  |  electric: oz@sis.yorku.ca
computer programming. -disgruntled prof  |  ph:[416] 736 5257 x 33976
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
From: MICHAEL.WILLETT@OFFICE.WANG.COM ("Michael Willett")
Subject: RAID embedded OS research reports?
Organization: Mail to News Gateway at Wang Labs
Date: 06 Oct 92 09:47:00 EST

Would anyone know where to find some good research reports on embedded
operating systems for RAID platforms? -- Michael.Willett@OFFICE.Wang.com

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Regarding John Scoggin's request for information on RAID systems for
VINES, Storage Computer of Nashua, N.H. is currently showing its new high
performance RAID 7 disk array platforms at the September Banyan Users
Meeting.  They work equally well with NetWare, IBM systems, workstations,
the VAX, etc.

Standards-based, RAID 7 is designed for enterprise-wide computing and
overcomes performance limitations of earlier RAID architectures, providing
a  "real world sustained application performance improvement of 200% to
400%" and dropping the cost of storage to 16 cents/MB.  Their brochures
say they can "mix and match" up to 48 SCSI commodity (3.5 or 5.25 inch)
drives, up to 150 GB.  The RAID 7 disk array platforms come with an embedded
operating system and up to 12 SCSI-2 based host interfaces.  Besides servers,
Storage Computer's RAID 7 disk array platforms can connect to workstations
and midrange systems in addition to IBM's.  Multiple CPUs can be attached to
same disk array platform.

The RAID 7 platforms come with up to 256 MB of cache, eliminating any
reason for using performance-damaging CPU main memory disk RAM.

The drives are "hot plugable" for uninterrupted, transparent operation,
with a hot standby drive automatically replacing a failed drive.

There was a lot of activity yesterday at the Storage Computer RAID 7 booth
at the Banyan show as I walked by.  They were demoing what happens if a
drive goes down, showing the backup drive taking over.

For further information on Storage Computer's RAID 7 for the VAX, their
key contact is indicated to be John O'Brien, Director of Technical Services,
at Tel. 603-880-3005 or FAX 603-889-7232.

Michael.Willett@OFFICE.Wang.com
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
From: visicom@nosc.mil (Visicom Corp)
Subject: Lanuage called 'Interface'?
Followups-To: rlk@visicom.com
Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego, CA
Distribution: comp
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 03:50:59 GMT

Has anyone heard of a language called 'Interface'?  It was, supposedly,
a language targetted to the 80x86 family of processors.

Thanks for any leads -- please email responses to me at rlk@visicom.com

Thanks!

	.Bob.
	rlk@visicom.com
From: TENAGLIA@mis.mcw.edu (Chris Tenaglia - 257-8765)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: Unix Logging Out
Date: 1 Oct 92 16:40:09 GMT
Distribution: inet
Organization: Medical College of Wisconsin (Milwaukee, WI)


If I have a simple abc menu that looks something like :

          M : MAIL
          C : CHANGE PASSWORD
          L : LOGOUT

Is there a way to log out cleanly. Unix seems to pop processes out all over
the place. I use icon 8.7 under ultrix 4.2a. My background is chiefly VMS.
There's probably a real simple answer I can't see because of my background.

Thanks,

Chris Tenaglia (System Manager) |  "The past explained,     
Medical College of Wisconsin    |   the future fortold, 
8701 W. Watertown Plank Rd.     |   the present largely appologized for."
Milwaukee, WI 53226             |   Organon to The Doctor
(414)257-8765                   |     
tenaglia@mis.mcw.edu
From: wgg@CS.UCSD.EDU (William Griswold)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: Re:  storing objects
Date: 4 Oct 92 03:57:41 GMT
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet

Richard,

Well, you might be able to exploit the properties of your specific tables.
For example, if your keys and elements are all ``printable'', then a simple
scheme of writing out a list of (key,elem) pairs in some simple format
would be easiest.  

However, if you have pointers in your objects, then
you need some way of encoding pointers, which is much trickier to do
something simple with.  In particular, you need some way of being able
to uniquely identifying an object so that you can recreate the pointer
structure.  You could do this by generating a unique label for every
object, and then use the label in place of the object in the (key,elem)
pairs: (key,label[elem]).  You would then print a second table of
(label[elem],elem) so you could reconstruct the original objects.

Sorry if this seems a little vague.

						Bill Griswold
						UCSD, Computer Sci and Engr.
						wgg@cs.ucsd.edu
From: goer@MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU ("Richard L. Goerwitz")
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: storing objects
Date: 4 Oct 92 02:13:17 GMT
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet

Let's say that I have a large table that I want to store and recreate
at run-time in a program.  What is the best way of doing this?  What
I mean by "best" is primarily "fastest," and not "smallest."  I normally
use codeobj (from the IPL) for such tasks, but I note that in this in-
stance, the tables in question take ten to twenty seconds to decode and
turn into an actual table at run-time.

Any better ideas?

-Richard
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
From: rahardj@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Budi Rahardjo)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: Re: Unix Logging Out
Date: 3 Oct 92 04:14:43 GMT
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada

TENAGLIA@mis.mcw.edu (Chris Tenaglia - 257-8765) writes:
>
>If I have a simple abc menu that looks something like :
>
>          M : MAIL
>          C : CHANGE PASSWORD
>          L : LOGOUT
>
>Is there a way to log out cleanly?

You might want to try executing   `kill -1 -1`   if LOGOUT is selected.

-- budi
-- 
Budi Rahardjo <rahardj@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Unix Support - Computer Services - University of Manitoba
From: ercn72@FESTIVAL.ED.AC.UK (R J Hare)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: Icon version 8.7
Date: 29 Sep 92 13:28:52 GMT
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet

Has anyone succeded in getting Icon version 8.7 to run on a Sequent running
System 5 (PTX) yet? We had a go last week and so far have not succeeded. 

Thanks

Roger Hare.

Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
From: goer@quads.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Subject: Re:  storing objects
Reply-To: goer@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Distribution: inet
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 20:38:26 GMT

wgg@CS.UCSD.EDU (William Griswold) writes:
>
>Well, you might be able to exploit the properties of your specific tables.
>For example, if your keys and elements are all ``printable'', then...

What they are are LR(1)-generated action and goto tables.  If I don't opti-
mize (or do so at run-time), then I can do what you suggest.  The trouble
is that one of the big optimizations that takes some time to sort out is
based on the property that rows in the action table are often the same, so
that one can store pointers to one single structure, instead of repeating
identical rows.

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%midway@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@midway.uchicago.edu          rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer
From: keil@APOLLO.HP.COM
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: Re: storing objects
Date: 5 Oct 92 16:16:43 GMT
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet


>Let's say that I have a large table that I want to store and recreate
>at run-time in a program.  What is the best way of doing this?  What
>I mean by "best" is primarily "fastest," and not "smallest."
>Any better ideas?
>-Richard

 What is large? 1k, 10k, 100k elements?
 With the old scheme of non-expandable tables, I found that increasing
 the initial table size had a big effect for tables of over a thousand
 elements. I'm not sure where the breakover point is for the newer
 expandable table mechanism, but I suspect that if you make the initial
 table size at least as big as, if not twice that size of, your table,
 that things will go faster. At one point, back in the version sevens,
 I added a second parameter to table [table(x,size)] to set the initial
 size of the tablas needed. This seemed more elegant that just always using
 a larger table. On the other hand, with virtual memory systems,
 You may not care if the initial table size is always 10k elememts (if you
 decide to just staticly increase the initial allocation size.)

-Mark
From: Paul_Abrahams@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: Logging out from Unix using an Icon program
Date: 6 Oct 92 17:12:00 GMT
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet

Chris Tenaglia asks:
 
> If I have a simple abc menu that looks something like :
> 
>           M : MAIL
>           C : CHANGE PASSWORD
>           L : LOGOUT
> 
> Is there a way to log out cleanly. Unix seems to pop processes out all over
> the place. I use icon 8.7 under ultrix 4.2a. My background is chiefly VMS.
> There's probably a real simple answer I can't see because of my background.
 
I haven't been following all the replies to this question closely, but I've
noticed several suggestions for using 'kill'.  That seems to me to be a
meat-cleaver approach.
 
I'll assume that the context is that you're writing an Icon program to
serve as a replacement login shell.  (In non-Unixspeak, you're writing
an Icon program that takes over when a user logs in and enables the user
to carry out operations such as reading mail, changing hisorher password,
and eventually logging out.)
 
Under this assumption, there *is* a simple answer: call the program from
your initialization file (.profile for the Bourne or Korn shells, .cshrc
for the C shell) using the 'exec' command.  The program will then replace
the executing shell as your outermost process.  When you exit from the
Icon program, you'll also log out.  Therefore, just tie the 'L' item in
your menu to the Icon 'exit' function.
 
Another strategy is to use a Bourne shell function or the C shell 'source'
command with a little script that tests the exit code of the Icon program
and does an exit if that code has a certain distinguished value.  However,
I don't know of any advantages that this method has over the simple one.
Direct execution as provided by Bourne shell functions and C shell 'source'
is essential; if you try this from a shell script, you'll merely exit
from the script.
 
Unix makes it very difficult to log out from a nested shell, deliberately
so.  You have to find your top-level process and kill it.  I assume that
for your purposes you don't have to log out from a nested shell.
 
Paul Abrahams
 
 
 

Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
From: goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Subject: Re: Unix Logging Out
Reply-To: goer@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Distribution: inet
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 02:45:23 GMT

TENAGLIA@mis.mcw.edu (Chris Tenaglia - 257-8765) writes:
>
>If I have a simple abc menu that looks something like :
>
>          M : MAIL
>          C : CHANGE PASSWORD
>          L : LOGOUT
>
>Is there a way to log out cleanly?

Under UNIX, processes like shells (i.e. command interpreters) normally
get run right on login, and unless you "exec" a program (and overlay
that shell), it waits for your application to finish, then resumes its
work.  Under normal circumstances, you can't log out from any of your
login shell's child processes.  You have to quit everything else, and
jump back to the login shell and log out from there.

You could get around this a) by finding your login shell and then
killing it manually (a la system("kill -9 "||process_id) where pro-
cess_id is the ID of your login shell.  This is very un-UNIXish.  It's
normally presumed that one will not *want* to log out with processes
still active.

Does this make any sense?

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%midway@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@midway.uchicago.edu          rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer