HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 92 10:13:58 EST
From: Paul_Abrahams@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu
Subject: Semicolons and newlines

Personally, I very much like the way that Icon handles semicolons and
newlines.  To appreciate it, it helps to look at some history in the
Hegelian terms of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.  (Idle query: am I
the first person to mention Hegel in this newsgroup?)
 
In the early days of programming languages, Fortran was dominant.  The
Fortran convention is that a newline ends a statement, with an "escape
hatch" in the form of continuation cards.  People generally found the
continuation cards to be an awkward and uncomfortable convention, and
also were looking for a way of placing more than one statement on a line.
 
That thesis--that newlines end statements, but with an escape hatch--led
to the antithesis: that newlines should be ignored altogether and that a
particular character, the semicolon, should be used either to separate
or to terminate statements.  That was the approach of Algol 60, Pascal,
and their numerous successors (which did disagree on the terminator versus
separator question).  That approach is still dominant today.  It is
tolerable, but hardly optimal.
 
Icon, of course, introduced the synthesis: the idea that newlines indeed
ought to be meaningful, but that by themselves they were not sufficient
as a method of ending statements.  (Let's ignore for the purposes of this
discussion the fact that Icon is an expression language.)  I don't know
whether Ralph originated this idea, since it also appears in awk.  It
seems to me that the synthesis has gotten it right: that newlines are too
useful to be ignored and are indeed the natural way of ending a statement,
but that we need some way of overriding the significance of newlines both
to place several statements on a single line and to allow statements to
span lines.
 
One drawback to the Icon approach, but an unavoidable one, is that it
is more natural to begin a continuation line with an operator than to end
the previous line with an operator.  (Or so it seems to me, based perhaps
on my mathematical background; in mathematical writing, continuation
lines of equations usually begin with operators.)  Another drawback in
extending the idea to other languages is that it's necessary for the
lexical scanner to be able to distinguish operators from other lexical
elements.  That may not be easy in a language that allows identifiers to
be defined as operators.  For example, the Icon lexical scanner has to
be able to distinguish between
  x := not
    + z
and
  x := knot
    + z
The second of these gets an inserted semicolon, but the first does not.
If Icon allowed me to define "knot" as an operator, it would be in trouble.
 
Paul Abrahams
From: bevan@cs.man.ac.uk (Stephen J Bevan)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: readability of the algol68 report (was Re: confusing errors)
Date: 4 Nov 92 01:10:54 GMT
	<1992Oct23.183537.6160@midway.uchicago.edu>
	<SPACKMAN.92Oct28134152@disco-sol.dfki.uni-sb.de>
	<1992Nov3.160646.21642@ips.cs.tu-bs.de>
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester
In-reply-to: neitzel@ips.cs.tu-bs.de's message of 3 Nov 92 16:06:46 GMT

In article <1992Nov3.160646.21642@ips.cs.tu-bs.de> neitzel@ips.cs.tu-bs.de (Martin Neitzel) writes:
   > it [the Algol68 Revised Report] isn't exactly very readable
   Sorry, I just beg to differ.  Of course, you should read a gentle
   introduction into two-level-grammars beforehand  (Cleaveland/Uzgaliz
   excellent book on "Grammars for Programming Languages" comes to mind).

I beg to differ with your differing.  The method is certainly elegant,
however I don't think it is particularly _readable_.  The implicationsw
of the aliasing that can occur are quite subtle and it takes a _lot_
of effort to follow them.  To me, van Wijngaarden grammars are a
minimalist approach to defining a language.  A (probably bad) analogy
would be using SKI combinators as your programming language,
foundationally/theoretically very nice but a bugger to work with
practically.  Give me a denotational or operational definition any
day; they also have the advantage that they are easier to turn into
interpreters/compilers.

bevan
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 09:58:55 MST
From: "Gregg Townsend" <gmt@cs.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re:  Rationale for sortf() second argument?

    From icon-group-sender Thu Nov 12 05:29:31 1992
    
    Can someone explain to me why the second argument to the sortf() function
    is an integer index of the field in the record to sort on, instead of a
    string containing the field name?

Not really.  The awful truth is that I didn't even think of that when I wrote
and contributed the implementation of sortf().   Your points are well taken.

    Gregg Townsend / Computer Science Dept / Univ of Arizona / Tucson, AZ 85721
    +1 602 621 4325     gmt@cs.arizona.edu     110 57 16 W / 32 13 45 N / +758m
From: goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: Re:  Rationale for sortf() second argument?
Date: 13 Nov 92 02:28:31 GMT
Reply-To: goer@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

"Gregg Townsend" <gmt@cs.arizona.edu> writes:
>    
>    Can someone explain to me why the second argument to the sortf() function
>    is an integer index of the field in the record to sort on, instead of a
>    string containing the field name?
>
>Not really.  The awful truth is that I didn't even think of that when I wrote
>and contributed the implementation of sortf().   Your points are well taken.

Don't sell yourself short, Gregg.  Integer offsets are much more general
than field names.  They can be applied to lists as well as records.  I'm
quite happy, myself, with how things worked out, although it's clear that
there are many possibilities for me to screw things up.

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%midway@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@midway.uchicago.edu          rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 12:27:32 EST
From: Paul_Abrahams@MTS.cc.Wayne.edu
Subject: Second argument to sortf

Greg Townsend has told us that he just didn't think of the possibility
of using a field name as the second argument to sortf when he built it.
Given that it's too late to redo the design, what's the best way to provide
this obviously useful functionality?
 
(1) Perhaps the implementation could be modified, as Jerry Nowlin suggested,
to overload the second argument so that a field name would be interpreted
as the key field.
 
(2) But an even neater approach, which wouldn't require modifying sortf at
all, would be an Icon function fieldpos(rectype, fld) that would take a
record type and field name as inputs and would yield the field position
as output.  Such a function would probably have other uses as well.
 
Paul Abrahams
 

Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
From: ppetto@wariat.org (Peter J. Petto)
Subject: More Than LineAtATime
Organization: Akademia Pana Kleksa, Public Access Uni* Site
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 20:43:38 GMT

Can anyone direct me to an example Icon routine that will assemble
lines into a string (paragraph) that can be scanned for patterns that
"straddle" the original lines -- and a complementary routine to break
the paragraph string back up into lines of less than a specified
margin value?

While I'm asking, I might as well go for the high blue sky. <grin>
How about a routine that will check hyphenated words against a list
(dictionary) to see if the hyphens can be eliminated. (For use with
the above.)

I'd appreciate any advice I can get; I will summarize and post all
that I receive.

---
Peter Petto          |       ppetto@wariat.org
Bay Village, Ohio    |    73125.617@compuserve.com
From: goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: Re: file scanning
Date: 5 Nov 92 04:55:57 GMT
Reply-To: goer@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

>>One thing that's worth thinking about is whether string scanning could
>>be extended to cover files.  That would solve your problem.
> 
>This was somewhat surprising to me, because I already do string
>scanning on files.
>
>  !!inputfile ? while write(move(1))

This only gives us a character at a time, and isn't really and dif-
ferent than saying "while c := reads(inputfile) do (something with
c)."  This really isn't scanning (where you can move to arbitrary
positions, perform analytical and synthetic operations, etc.).  What
we are talking about is overloading the ? operator so that it can
take an expression on its left that produces either a string or a
file, so that if a file were produced, functions like move() would
still work.  To work well, this would take a lot of seeking, and per-
haps a little creative buffering, plus a whole lot of work on the
machinery of scanning.

I think it's a neat idea, and I don't see how it would be the least
bit un-Iconish.  It would sure make tokenizing a lot easier.  Even
Icon's own tokenizer wouldn't work with scanning, but rather needs
a character-driven finite-state machine.

Ken, Ralph, Clint, etc.:  How hard would it really be to implement
file scanning?

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%midway@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@midway.uchicago.edu          rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
From: dac@prolix.apana.org.au (Andrew Clayton)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Subject: PMREXX under OS/2
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 12:11:29 GMT
Organization: More like Dis~, really.
X-Newsreader: Arn V1.00 beta rel2

I'm a longtime Arexx user on the Amiga platform, and was recently
asked to provide a REXX solution to a programming problem at
work, on the OS/2 platform.

I had a look today, and they don't have an OS/2 Rexx reference
manual, only an MVS reference manual. Big sigh.

Anyway, there seems to be no libraries around with the base *1.3*
version of OS/2 [running Lan Mangler] that support REXX
enhancements, specifically in the area of file I/O support.

My questions are:

1) Is there a generic way to make OS/2 read and write files from
   a REXX command file? [There was no readln, writeln, readch,
   writech or execio functionality that I could find in the
   standard release. I even looked through the rexx.dll file for
   clues,and didn't find much, except for tantalizing references to
   stdout and stdin.]

2) Using standard input, and PARSE UPPER PULL xyz, I am able to
   input the information I need to process, but everytime I go
   through the loop and read another line, I get an annoying
   linefeed, '?' and another linefeed appearing on the screen. This
   is exceptionally annoying, and I would like to inform the PMREXX
   interpreter of it's evil ways, so that it doesn't do this. 

Any clues out there?  I needed answers yesterday, so if you could
drop me a quick line here in comp.lang.rexx or via email, I would
be most appreciative.  Thanks.

Dac
--
dac@prolix.apana.org.au              David Andrew Clayton.           // _| _  _
dac@prolix.sserve.cc.adfa.oz.au      Canberra, Australia           \X/ (_](_](_
From: redrooster@mavenry.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Subject: MSC 6.0
X-CitNet-ID: 29618
Date: Thu, 05 Nov 92 05:16:14 GMT

Looking for a copy of MSC 6.0. I'm a student so I need it to be a reasonable 
price. Thanks. RJW
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 09:42:13 EST
From: Linda Littleton <LRL@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Subject: Upcoming ANSI meeting

Meeting 7 of X3J18 ("ANSI Committee") will be December 7-9 in
Berkeley.  Everyone is welcome.  If you'd like to attend, let
me know and I will send you more details.

Here is the agenda:

Since we cannot predict how much discussion each item will
require this is an ordering but not a timetable.

We will start (after welcoming anybody new) with project rather
than technical aspects:

- membership
- approval of minutes
- volunteer status.
- document preparation status.
- The plan and its milestones.

For the technical issues, taking the items we planned for this meeting
in newest-topics-first order:

- Trace (Neil Milsted)
- Conditions (Charles Daney)
- Assignments and Vars (Mike Sinz)
- I/O (Charles Daney)

- Keyword Instructions (Keith Watts)
- Commands (Ed Spire)
- Bifs (Chip Davis)

- Syntax (Neil Milsted & Brian Marks)
- Errors (Linda Littleton)
- Environment Interface (Brian Marks)
- Rationale (Brian Marks)

As usual, we will finish by extending the details about future
meetings.


Hotel Arrangements:
                   The Shattuck Hotel
                   2086 Allston Way
                   Berkeley, CA  94704
                   telephone: (510) 845-7300
                              (510) 644-2088
                              (800) SHATUCK (reservations from California)
                              (800) BERKELY (reservations from outside Calif.)

Meeting Room Arrangements:
                   International House
                   University of California
                   2299 Piedmont Avenue
                   Berkeley, CA  94720
                   (510) 642-0589

                   meeting room is a comfortable walk from the
                   hotel; the campus shuttle can also be used
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
X-Acknowledge-To: <AZIZ@UTMJB>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Date:         Sat, 7 Nov 1992 14:25:36 MAL
From:         aziz <AZIZ@UTMJB.BITNET>
Subject:      Different Rexx and C

Hello, Everybody.

Do everybody know what are different between Rexx and C.


Thank You.
From: redrooster@mavenry.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Subject: GNU & REXX 3.0
X-CitNet-ID: 30932
Date: Fri, 06 Nov 92 21:36:04 GMT

I'm just learning how to get a file compiled in GNU. Obvious Programming 
Novice. Is GNU or GCC compatible with REXX. Where would I find a decent 
beginners book on REXX that includes the use of C? Has anyone here been able 
to set up Brief 2.5 to be smart with REXX? Where to start?
From: rick@emma.panam.wimsey.bc.ca (Rick Younie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Subject: SIGNAL ON Helpme
Date: Fri, 06 Nov 1992 05:52:24 GMT
Distribution: world
Bcc: rick
X-Newsreader: Arn V1.00 beta rel2

I've started appending an error trapping routine to my scripts, using most of
the SIGNAL ON options.  The routine writes an entry in the system log when a
script fails and also pulls the offending script into the text editor and
positions the cursor on the line with the error.

This routine would be a perfect candidate for a subroutine if I could figure
out a way to do it.

Have I got this right?  The SIGNAL instructions and the subroutines that they
point to must be in the base script (what is the proper name for this
anyway?).  So neither can be in an external subroutine.  It's not even
possible to have this set-up routine as an internal subroutine, is it?  Then
it could be tacked on the end of the script instead of messing up the start.

I thought of one way to do it, but it is fairly mickeymouse.  ARexx can
invoke scripts asynchronously, so a script could call the setup routine and
then exit.  The setup routine would then call it back in turn, passing back
the original parameters and also a flag so a loop wouldn't be set up.  I'm
not sure I've explained this clearly..

Is there an easier way to do this?

Rick
--
                         ------,------
 rick@emma.panam.wimsey.bc.ca  |  1:153/765.9
 rick@emma.tfbbs.wimsey.bc.ca  |  1:153/911
                         ------'------
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
From: etljmme@etlxd10h.etlxd (Jim)
Subject: Re:      Different Rexx and C
Organization: Ericsson
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 10:19:46 GMT


There's a world of difference, C and Rexx have nothing in common except that you can
get them both on nearly everything!

Cheerio, Jim.
From: jpalmer@zeus.calpoly.edu (John Palmer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Subject: REXX for DOS
Summary: Is there such a creature?
Date: 12 Nov 92 18:19:20 GMT
Article-I.D.: zeus.1992Nov12.181920.118359
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

I am extremely interested in learning about REXX. I have access to a   
80286 with 1MB of ram. Is there REXX for MS-DOS? Are there any tutorials
online for REXX? What would you suggest for a reading list? What would
be a good platform to learn REXX on? Who should I contact for more
information? 

Thank you for your consideration in this matter. I look forward to your
email reply.

John Palmer
jpalmer@pan.calpoly.edu
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Date:         Thu, 12 Nov 1992 19:47:28 PST
From:         Dave Gomberg <GOMBERG@UCSFVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: REXX for DOS
              12 Nov 1992 18:19:20 GMT from <jpalmer@ZEUS.CALPOLY.EDU>

Personal REXX for DOS is available from Quercus Systems, Box 2157,
Saratoga CA 95070 for $125 or so.

Dave Gomberg    GOMBERG@UCSFVM  Internet node UCSFVM.UCSF.EDU  (415)731-7793
Seven Gateview Court, San Francisco CA 94116-1941
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Date:         Fri, 13 Nov 1992 12:01:18 EDT
From:         Helio Camilo dos Santos <HSANTOS@BRUFPB2.BITNET>
Subject:      Needing some programs

I'm needing learn more about rexx language (cms), so I'm looking
for every kind of programs in this language.
    Where can I find them ????   If you have some examples, documentations
or programs, please, send them to HSANTOS@BRUFPB2.BITNET.


    Thanks in advance.



Helio.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
From: giguere@csg.uwaterloo.ca (Eric Giguere)
Subject: Re: PMREXX under OS/2
Organization: Computer Systems Group, University of Waterloo
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 18:58:53 GMT

In article <hokZr*gl0@prolix.apana.org.au> dac@prolix.apana.org.au (Andrew Clayton) writes:
>1) Is there a generic way to make OS/2 read and write files from
>   a REXX command file? [There was no readln, writeln, readch,
>   writech or execio functionality that I could find in the
>   standard release. I even looked through the rexx.dll file for
>   clues,and didn't find much, except for tantalizing references to
>   stdout and stdin.]

Under OS/2 the functions linein(), charin(), etc. are used for
input and output.  It's actually a very strange model if you're
a C programmer used to open/read/close and the like.  REXX will
implicitly open a file for reading or writing the first time you
used one of these functions, or you can force it to do certain
things with the stream() function.

>2) Using standard input, and PARSE UPPER PULL xyz, I am able to
>   input the information I need to process, but everytime I go
>   through the loop and read another line, I get an annoying
>   linefeed, '?' and another linefeed appearing on the screen. This
>   is exceptionally annoying, and I would like to inform the PMREXX
>   interpreter of it's evil ways, so that it doesn't do this. 

I'm not sure what you're talking about here.  Realize that PMREXX.EXE
is an _application_ that invokes the REXX interpreter.  The two are not
the same.  PMREXX's purpose in life is to run a REXX program in a PM
window with some nice cut and paste features.  To do this it has to
trap input and output in ways that perhaps are not what you want.  You
can still run your REXX programs directly from the OS/2 command prompt
to make sure I/O is done as you expect it.

-- 
 Eric Giguere                                    giguere@csg.UWaterloo.CA
          So is Windows NT short for "Windows, NOT?"  
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
From: kevin@csbvax.uucp (Kevin Myers)
Subject: varible assignment question
Organization: Varian Associates
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 92 15:06:03 GMT


	Platform: OS/2 2.0 PMREXX

	I have a question that doesn't appear in the faq.
	Can I assign the output of some command to a variable.
	In unix shell I use myvar=`mycommand` which runs mycommand
	and assignes sdtout to the variable myvar. Can this be
	done in REXX?

		kevin@varian.com
Newsgroups: comp.lang.logo
From: pmoore@hemel.bull.co.uk (Paul Moore)
Subject: logo sources
Organization: Bull HN UK
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 13:12:50 GMT

can somebody post where all the logo sources can be found (or binaries)

I know of mswlogo and ladybug for the PC.

I know of comp.unix.sources/v10/logo

are there any others. 

I am writing a contoll program for a COmputer Numerically Controlled flat bed
driller and cutter - it seemed that logo is a good control language to start
from - hence the need for the source.


Newsgroups: comp.lang.logo
From: parvazda@cc.uvcc.edu
Subject: Request for Mac LOGO engines...
Organization: Utah Valley Community College
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 23:36:51 GMT

I have a SMALL request:  I am a Macintosh programmer in the process of putting
together a public-domain LOGO interpreter for the Mac (watch for: FreeLOGO! 
aka "LOGO power for the masses").  My question is:  what LOGO engines (PD or
otherwise) are there for the Mac?  

Love to hear it.

Dan Parvaz.

StDan@aol.com
ParvazDA@uvadm.uvcc.edu

Newsgroups: comp.lang.logo
From: asrgf@wombat.newcastle.edu.au
Subject: Logo and Control application.
Organization: University of Newcastle, AUSTRALIA
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 10:56:10 GMT

 I am interested in controling an input/output card via Logo on an IBM clone.
Years ago I was able to control a small "turtle" like "robot" using an Apple
2e computer, and Apple Logo via that machines "games" port. From memory it 
was as simple as using ".examine" and ".deposit" to read and set bytes in the Apples 64K memory
map corresponding to the games port addresses. I have long since lost the 
details. My input/ output cd uses Intel 8255's at hex 1b0-1b3 and 1b4-1b7.
If I could read and write to port addresses I could use the card.
Can this be done using "doslogo" ?


My question is this, will any of the msdos public domain Logo's allow this?
I have downloaded a copy of ftlogo from a ftp site. It seems to work with on
From: bh@anarres.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Brian Harvey)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.logo
Subject: Re: Logo and Control application.
Date: 11 Nov 1992 14:42:09 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: anarres.cs.berkeley.edu

asrgf@wombat.newcastle.edu.au writes:
>If I could read and write to port addresses I could use the card.
>My question is this, will any of the msdos public domain Logo's allow this?

Berkeley Logo doesn't have .examine or .deposit, but it shouldn't be
hard to add.  I'll put that on the list for the next version.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.logo