HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Subject: Re: features from Icon Language in lisp
Reply-To: goer@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 16:43:14 GMT

In article <1992Apr14.173407.28762@adobe.com> yost@adobe.COM writes:
>My first exposure to a seriously higher level language than C
>was Icon.  (Thank you Ralph Griswold, et al.)  Finally, I got around
>to learning lisp, where I wish I had started, and found that much
>of what I liked about Icon (automatic storage, everything is an
>expression, lists, tables, success->value/failure->nil) was there
>in Common Lisp with a (shall we say) different syntax (and a whole
>lot more, of course).
>
>Has anyone implemented any other of our favorite iconish things
>in Common Lisp or Scheme?  Like goal-directed evaluation,
>string scanning, ... ?

Personally, I feel good about Common LISP.  It's even more bloated than
Icon, though, and people who are really into clean LISP dialects seem
to prefer Scheme.  LISP, of course, isn't object-oriented (yes, another
level of indirection that seems to be the rage these days).  LISP
people are always quick to point out that you can do object-oriented pro-
gramming in LISP, but this is also true of C, Pascal, or even assembler.

The bottom line, I guess, is that we have to be bi- or better yet tri-
lingual, if not quadrilingual+ (e.g. Icon, C, LISP, and perhaps a func-
tional or object-oriented language, and PERL, sed, awk, etc.).  You'll
never get into AI (or Emacs :-)) without LISP, and you'll never run any
thing in real time without C.  You won't get elegant string scanning
outside of Icon.  You won't get your system adminstration work done un-
less you can do shell and awk/sed programming (or PERL).

My gut feeling is that you'll be better off using Icon and LISP, Dave,
when either is appropriate.

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%ellis@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@ellis.uchicago.edu           rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer
From: nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: Re: should I use ICON for a specific problem ?
Date: 9 Apr 92 12:50:13 GMT
Reply-To: nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall)
Organization: SCRI, Florida State University

In article <1992Apr9.045725.15554@midway.uchicago.edu> goer@midway.uchicago.edu writes:

   [ ... stuff deleted ... ]
>
>There's no reason to worry about flames here.  PERL is a system adminis-
>trator's tool par excellance, with a C interface that's actually much bet-
>ter than Icon's.  Icon is a much cleaner and more disciplined language,
>with a lot more options for control and data structures, coexpressions,
>and what not.  I find PERL a mess, but that's just me.  Probably I just
>don't know it well enough.

   It is so refreshing to see a well reasoned discussion of ICON vs PERL
   that I can't resist the temptation to say "WELL PUT!!"  I agree with
   everything that Richard said, completely, even to the part of "I find
   PERL a mess, but that's just me".  But it is certainly a gawdawful
   powerful tool in the hands of those who can deal with it :-)

John


--
John W. Nall              | Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
nall@mailer.scri.fsu.edu  | Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306

 "Disclaimer:  A world which requires disclaimers has too many lawyers."
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
From: allbery@NCoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH)
Subject: Re: should I use ICON for a specific problem ?
Reply-To: allbery@ncoast.org (Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH)
Organization: North Coast Public Access *NIX, Cleveland, OH
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 18:22:29 GMT
Followup-To: comp.lang.icon

As quoted from <1992Apr9.045725.15554@midway.uchicago.edu> by goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz):
+---------------
| There's no reason to worry about flames here.  PERL is a system adminis-
| trator's tool par excellance, with a C interface that's actually much bet-
| ter than Icon's.  Icon is a much cleaner and more disciplined language,
| with a lot more options for control and data structures, coexpressions,
| and what not.  I find PERL a mess, but that's just me.  Probably I just
| don't know it well enough.
+---------------

Perl *is* a mess, but it's a useful mess.  :-)  Perl reflects modern Unix in
that, which is more than somewhat appropriate, considering that Perl tries
hard to be all of Unix in one package.

But it's not intended to be appropriate for all tasks.  Perl's basic intent
was to be a sort of enhanced replacement for sed and awk, not a full-fledged
programming language.  I've already mentioned in a previous message that it
doesn't handle non-flat data structures very well; this is intentional and
Perl's author doesn't intend to change it.  For some tasks, Perl shines; for
others, Icon is clearly preferable; for still others there are other
solutions.  Keep in mind the saying "jack of all trades, master of none" and
it all becomes clearer:  for a given task there are appropriate and
inappropriate tools.

++Brandon
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery, KF8NH [44.70.4.88]        allbery@NCoast.ORG
Senior Programmer, Telotech, Inc. (if I may call myself that...)
From: yost@adobe.com (David Yost)
Subject: Re: features from Icon Language in lisp
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 20:54:56 GMT

In article <BEVAN.92Apr15120349@panda.cs.man.ac.uk> bevan@cs.man.ac.uk (Stephen J Bevan) writes:
>I've implemented equivalents of (all?) the Icon string scanning
>operations in Scheme.

Now we're talking.  This is the kind of thing I'm looking for.
Anyone else have something?

Thanks for your posting.

 --dave yost
From: lwall@netlabs.com (Larry Wall)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: Re: should I use ICON for a specific problem ?
Date: 10 Apr 92 18:32:35 GMT
Article-I.D.: netlabs.1992Apr10.183235.10731
Organization: NetLabs, Inc.

In article <1992Apr9.200549.10279@news.eng.convex.com> tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen) writes:
: From the keyboard of goer@midway.uchicago.edu:
: :
: :There's no reason to worry about flames here.  PERL is a system adminis-
: :trator's tool par excellance, with a C interface that's actually much bet-
: :ter than Icon's.  Icon is a much cleaner and more disciplined language,
: :with a lot more options for control and data structures, coexpressions,
: :and what not.  I find PERL a mess, but that's just me.  Probably I just
: :don't know it well enough.
: 
: Nope, you're right -- in more ways than I care to enumerate, it *is* a
: mess.  The amazing thing is how well it gets the job done anyway.

Perl was intended to be a mess from the start, so it's a very, um,
systematic mess...  :-)

Larry
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon,comp.lang.eiffel
From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle)
Subject: Re: lang comparison (not war)
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 92 17:39:51 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Keywords: icon eiffel c++ smalltalk mainsail

holen@xilinx.com (Victor A. Holen ) writes:

>Is there somewhere (book, ftp, ...) a reasonably objective 
>comparison of icon with eiffel with a few other (perhaps c++,
>smalltalk, mainsail..). 

       I haven't heard much about Icon in years.  It was intended as
a replacement for Snobol, and perhaps as an alternative to the horrible
"string languages" ("awk", "sed") that come with UNIX.  Icon offers
Snobol-like matching with C-like syntax.  It's intended for a 
different class of applications than is Eiffel.

					John Nagle
From: goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: Re: should I use ICON for a specific problem ?
Date: 9 Apr 92 04:57:25 GMT
Reply-To: goer@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

rantapaa@s6.math.umn.edu (Erik E. Rantapaa) writes:
>>>
>>>I wrote a long nawk-file for a machine where no awk-compiler is available.
>>>Now I'm searching for a language with the following spezifications:
>
>Not wishing to get into a Perl vs. Icon flame fest, I would suggest that
>you seriously consider using Perl.  Not only does Perl have many of the
>features that you require, but it also comes with a program called 'a2p'
>which converts awk programs to Perl.

This is probably good advice.  PERL is much closer to AWK than Icon is, and
if you want familiarity from this standpoint, go with PERL.  This answer
just didn't occur to me (I'd guess because the question was phrased, "Can
I do X in Icon?").

There's no reason to worry about flames here.  PERL is a system adminis-
trator's tool par excellance, with a C interface that's actually much bet-
ter than Icon's.  Icon is a much cleaner and more disciplined language,
with a lot more options for control and data structures, coexpressions,
and what not.  I find PERL a mess, but that's just me.  Probably I just
don't know it well enough.

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%ellis@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@ellis.uchicago.edu           rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
From: zrzm0111@helpdesk.rus.uni-stuttgart.de (MUFTI)
Subject: Why I can't use perl
Organization: User Helpdesk Comp. Cent. (RUS) U of Stuttgart, FRG
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 18:33:36 GMT

Dear Sirs,

Unfortunatly I started a icon vs. perl language war with my question if
I should use icon for my awk-script.

I thougth about using perl, before I thougth about icon, but perl seams to be 
too slow:

 1. Cause perl don't support "dump" on my system, the program needs with 
    perl the same big amount of time to startup, as with nawk/gawk. In this
    point wins the semicompiling concect of icon. 
 
 2. So I know perl doesn't support integer. Cause my machine has no 
    Floating Point Unit, a perl program is slower than a "tuned" gawk-version
    where 
    #define AWKTYPE long    (instead of double)

thanks to all for help

yours 
MUFTI

ps: the a2p -program doesn't work for my program, cause it don't know some-
    thing about the "do { } while()" -loop, which is a nawk-special feature
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon,comp.lang.eiffel
From: holen@xilinx.com (Victor A. Holen )
Subject: lang comparison (not war)
Keywords: icon eiffel c++ smalltalk mainsail
Organization: Xilinx Inc.
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 21:21:44 GMT

Is there somewhere (book, ftp, ...) a reasonably objective 
comparison of icon with eiffel with a few other (perhaps c++,
smalltalk, mainsail..). Comparison of features, robustness ( 
maturity of compilers), clarity in use, availability, standard-status (!),
development environment (debuger +...), performance, suitability for
large CAD (and  other) projects ..   ?
Just the basics :)  ?
Thanks.

-- 
 victor ....  ___  ._..  .  _.     holen@xilinx.com
From: callas@eris.enet.dec.com (What good is rain that falls up?  16-Apr-1992 1800)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: Lisp, Icon, and OO
Date: 16 Apr 92 22:03:52 GMT
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet


    "LISP, of course, isn't object-oriented (yes, another level of indirection
    that seems to be the rage these days)."

Well, actually, it is. The definition of CLOS (Common Lisp Object System) in
CLtL2 (Common Lisp : the Language, second edition) and the soon-to-be-ANSI
standard make it object oriented.

All Lisp objects are in a class hierarchy, and you can write methods that
handle ordinary Lisp objects, defstruct structures, and of course CLOS objects.

Anyone who isn't writing completely OO Lisp is doing so because they choose to,
or they have an old Lisp system.

	Jon
From: goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: upto() with backslash escaping
Date: 10 Apr 92 03:05:33 GMT
Reply-To: goer@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations


Anybody else need one of these?
-Richard

############################################################################
#
#	Name:	 slashupto.icn
#
#	Title:	 slashupto (upto with backslash escaping)
#
#	Author:	 Richard L. Goerwitz
#
#	Version: 1.1
#
############################################################################
#
#  Slashupto works just like upto, except that it ignores backslash
#  escaped characters.  I can't even begin to express how often I've
#  run into problems applying Icon's string scanning facilities to
#  to input that uses backslash escaping.  Normally, I tokenize first,
#  and then work with lists.  With slashupto() I can now postpone or
#  even eliminate the traditional tokenizing step, and let Icon's
#  string scanning facilities to more of the work.
#
#  If you're confused:
#
#  Typically UNIX utilities (and probably others) use backslashes to
#  "escape" (i.e. remove the special meaning of) metacharacters.  For
#  instance, UNIX shells normally accept "*" as a shorthand for "any
#  series of zero or more characters.  You can make the "*" a literal
#  "*," with no special meaning, by prepending a backslash.  The rou-
#  tine slashupto() understands these backslashing conventions.  You
#  can use it to find the "*" and other special characters because it
#  will ignore "escaped" characters.
#
############################################################################
#
#  Links: none
#
#  See also: slashbal.icn
#
############################################################################

#
# slashupto:  cset x string x integer x integer -> integers
#             (c, s, i, j) -> Is (a generator)
#    where Is are the integer positions in s[i:j] before characters
#    in c that is not preceded by a backslash escape
#
procedure slashupto(c, s, i, j)

    if /s := &subject
    then /i := &pos
    else /i := 1
    /j := *s + 1
    
    /c := &cset
    c ++:= '\\'
    s[1:j] ? {
        tab(i)
        while tab(upto(c)) do {
            if (="\\", move(1)) then next
            suspend .&pos
            move(1)
        }
    }

end

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%ellis@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@ellis.uchicago.edu           rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer
From: john@para.cps.COM (John O'Brien)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: unsub
Date: 14 Apr 92 02:37:13 GMT
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet

Thanks for the mail the last few months.  I don't need this list 
as I have regained USENET access.  See you on the net!
john@para.cps.com  also  jdo@genco.com
From: zrzm0111@helpdesk.rus.uni-stuttgart.de (MUFTI)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: should I use ICON for a specific problem ?
Date: 6 Apr 92 10:44:10 GMT
Organization: User Helpdesk Comp. Cent. (RUS) U of Stuttgart, FRG

Hi

Could anyone tell me, if I should use ICON for this problem:

I wrote a long nawk-file for a machine, where no awk-compiler is available.
Now I'm searching for a language with the following spezifications:

1. "string-indexed" arrays should be available (nawk-syntax: array["string"])
2. multidimension arrays should be available   (nawk-synax:  array[1,2])
3. integer type variables should be available  (can be done with #define AWKTYPE long ...)
4. subroutines should be available
5. same loops as for, do and while in C should be available (not the 
   same syntax is needed ...)
6. total computer-readable documentation is needed (I don't want to buy a
   book of a thing, that maybe don't do it ...)

Should I use ICON for this ?

thanks
so long
MUFTI
From: janpeter@mpi.kun.nl (Jan Peter de Ruiter)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: ICON debugger
Date: 10 Apr 92 11:25:20 GMT
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet

Is an interactive debugger available for ICON? Sometimes, playing
around with &trace and putting in al lot of write() statements just
is not convenient anymore. I gather, people who test and debug large
ICON programs must have some means to help their debugging. I would be
interested to know how other people debug their ICON programs.

Jan Peter de Ruiter
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
EMAIL: janpeter@mpi.kun.nl
From: dsbarr@modula.cs.psu.edu (Dave Barr)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Subject: Re: what/where is execio
Date: 15 Apr 92 03:23:23 GMT
Reply-To: dsbarr@cs.psu.edu
Organization: Penn State Computer Science

In article <1992Apr14.234836.22508@nevada.edu> tierney@nevada.edu (TIM TIERNEY) writes:
>In article <9!2H6buq6@cs.psu.edu> dsbarr@cs.psu.edu writes:
>>	Please, EXECIO does NOT have ANYTHING to do with Rexx.  Please
>>everyone say this to yourself 10 times.  EXECIO is not a Rexx fuction,
>>it is a CMS command, in the case of VM/CMS, particular implementations
>>may do otherwise.  You can type EXECIO from the command line without
>
>BUUUUUUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!  WRONG ANSWER!!!  YOU LOSE!!!  CONSOLATION PRIZE
>IS ENROLLMENT IN THE "GET A CLUE" COURSE FOR REXX.  :-)

No thanks, I've been getting paid to write Rexx for a two years, and
have done it for 4.

>See IBM manual SC28-1882-1  TSO/E Extensions Version 2, Procedures Language
>MVS/REXX User's Guide.  Page 183, Under second bullet:
>	
>	"Processing information to and from data sets
>
>	The TSO/E REXX EXECIO command in an exec reads information from
                              ~~~~~~~
>	a data set to the data stack (or a list of variables) and writes
>	information from the data stack (or list of variables) back to
>	a data set."
>
>Also see page 184 through 191 for a complete description of the service.

Thanks for supplying my own documentation.  It's a COMMAND, not a part
of Rexx.  Thankyouverymuch.  Thank YOU for playing.  Like you say,
it's a SERVICE, not a Rexx function.  Can you say execio()?  Nope.

I have IBM SC23-034-0 VM/XA SP System Product Interpreter Reference
right in front of me.  (IBM's name for the Rexx interpreter at the time,
now it's Procedures Language VM/REXX) There is no reference to EXECIO 
whatsoever.  The documentation for EXECIO is found in the CMS Command 
Reference.  EXECIO according to them is definately not a Rexx function.
It provides an INTERFACE to Rexx, but it is not Rexx.

>EXECIO is indeed a REXX function that should be present in ALL REXX
>emulators regardless of platform and operating system.

Says you.  Show me a Rexx statement that will read a file.
(Of course filenames are OS dependant)

>It is NOT unique to CMS.

If you read my previous post, I said this.

>It DOES have something to do with REXX.  REXX DOES have a concept
>of files and file systems.  Please say this to yourself 10 times:

Nope, without external programs provided by the environment, Rexx
has no concept of files and file systems.

>	"I'll RTFM before I give definitive answers"

Let's all sing along.  :-)

--Dave
-- 
Dave Barr            | -- NewsGrazer, a NeXTstep(tm) news reader, posting --
dsbarr@cs.psu.edu    | NOT!
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
From: dsbarr@modula.cs.psu.edu (Dave Barr)
Subject: Re: what/where is execio
Reply-To: dsbarr@cs.psu.edu
Organization: Penn State Computer Science
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 23:28:45 GMT

	Please, EXECIO does NOT have ANYTHING to do with Rexx.  Please
everyone say this to yourself 10 times.  EXECIO is not a Rexx fuction,
it is a CMS command, in the case of VM/CMS, particular implementations
may do otherwise.  You can type EXECIO from the command line without
touching Rexx.  If EXECIO were Rexx, you would say execio('...') or
call execio '...', not 'EXECIO ...'.  
	Rexx has no concept of files or a filesystem, they must be
handled by external routines that pass variables (or the system stack)
back into Rexx.  In the case of VM/CMS this routine can be EXECIO,
PIPE, or many other programs.  In DOS's Rexx, there is an EXECIO,
in other implementations it may not be true.

--Dave
-- 
Dave Barr            | -- NewsGrazer, a NeXTstep(tm) news reader, posting --
dsbarr@cs.psu.edu    | NOT!
From: dinda@cae.wisc.edu (Dinda Peter)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Subject: Re: REXX: A de facto Standard ??
Date: 13 Apr 92 03:19:57 GMT
Article-I.D.: doug.1992Apr12.221957.24521
Organization: College of Engineering, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison

In article <92098.154219CATHIE@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU> CATHIE@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU writes:
>VMS
>Windows  (I realize this is a DOS extension but think it's worth mentioning)

Who has a Windows version?  IBM was very close to releasing a Windows
Rexx before the OS/2 - Windows debacle.  I have a *very beta* version of
it.  Who else has gotten in the ring?
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
From: CHBRIN5@nyx.uni-konstanz.de (Kai Hortmann)
Subject: Help me| PUSH and QUEUE won't work in ARexx
Organization: University of Konstanz, Germany
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 09:14:11 GMT

I was trying to write a replacement for the AmigaDOS 'cd' command that
takes abbreviations, because some of my directory names are quite long.
Using showdir() and abbrev() I was able to get the name of a directory
from an abbreviation, but when I wanted to change the directory I failed.
First I tried:

PUSH 'cd dh0:c'           /* or QUEUE */

but that got me absolutely no result. That was the first time I had used
PUSH or QUEUE in ARexx and so I experimented a bit and found out that
both commands don't work at all. Not even

rx "PUSH 'dir'"           /* from the CLI */

did give me any response. In VM/CMS REXX I have to use MAKEBUF before I
use PUSH or QUEUE. Is there a similar thing in ARexx?

Other things I tried to change the directory were:

ADDRESS COMMAND 'cd dh0:c'     /* absolutely no effect, although: */
ADDRESS COMMAND 'cd'           /* works fine */

Using the Pragma() function:

CALL PRAGMA('d','dh0:c')

resulted in a change of the directory INSIDE the script, so that
showdir() gives me the contents of dh0:c, but as soon as the script
ends, I'm back in my old directory.

Can anybody either tell me, why PUSH and QUEUE won't work or give me
another idea how to change directory from an ARexx script?

<*     Kai Hortmann - University of Konstanz - Germany      *>
<* chbrin5@dknkurz1.bitnet  or  chbrin5@nyx.uni-konstanz.de *>
From: CATHIE@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx
Subject: Re: REXX: A de facto Standard ??
Date: 7 Apr 92 23:42:19 GMT
Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

In response to the following two people

>In article <10222@cernvax.cern.ch> perretg@cernvax.cern.ch (denis
perret-gallix)
>writes:
>>
>>It would be useful  to maintain a list of platforms and OS supporting
>>REXX.
>>                                         Cheers
>
>VM/CMS  (The "home" of Rexx)
>Amiga
>DOS
>OS/2
>MVS/TSO
>Unix
>
>Hm, that's all I can think of for now.  Someone have an FAQ for this
>group?
>
>--Dave
>--
>Dave Barr            | One is the loneliest number.
>dsbarr@cs.psu.edu    | Two is as lonely as one, just shifted to the left.

VMS
Windows  (I realize this is a DOS extension but think it's worth mentioning)

Cathie Dager, cathie@slac.slacvm.stanford.edu
My opinion only.  SLAC, Stanford University, and the DOE occasionally agree
REXX Symposium  May 3-5, Annapolis, Maryland   (75 registered as of today)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.rexx