HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Sound
Date: 13 Sep 92 12:25:48 GMT
Organization: EIEI-U

Category 18,  Topic 6
Message 8         Fri Sep 11, 1992
B.DUNN5 [Brian]              at 23:26 EDT
 
  Now available in the GEnie download area is an Atari ST implementation of a
prototype sound standard.  The words are:

 SOUND  ( frequency  volume  voice#  --  )
 TONE-SOUNDS   \ Start generating tones.
 NOISE-SOUNDS  \ Start generating white noise.

SOUND is DEFERed.  TONE-SOUNDS and NOISE-SOUNDS change the action of SOUND.
Frequency is Hertz, volume is 0-255, voice# is 0 to whatever your machine can
handle.  The ST handles 0-2.  When a sound is started it continues until a new
sound is generated on the same voice.  A volume of 0 turns off a voice.

For many machines you might wish to add other kinds of sounds, including
PHASER-SOUNDS and EXPLOSION-SOUNDS and perhaps MIDI-SOUNDS, although midi
might best be handled in other ways.  Those of us with simpler machines may
replace your fancy sounds with our simple TONE-SOUNDS.

This simple wordset produces some fairly nice sound effects in the little
starfighter demo game for the graphwin package.  If there are suggestions for
better portability to other hardware we can change the wordset.

[When the FORTH sysops release this file for general downloading, another
 message will be posted, along with email retrieval instructions.  Please
 do not ask for this file until then.  -DWP]
-----
This message came from GEnie via willett.  You *cannot* reply to the author
using e-mail.  Please post a follow-up article, or use any instructions
the author may have included (USMail addresses, telephone #, etc.).
Report problems to: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
From: peterd@pjd.dev.cdx.mot.com (Peter Desnoyers)
Subject: Re: Sampler Forth
Organization: Motorola Codex, Canton, Massachusetts
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 13:53:13 GMT

alan@tree.UUCP (Alan) writes:

>Forth programmers seem to be "hung up" on how fast their Forth kernel
>runs. 

This has always surprised me, given that there seems to be a strong
hostility towards classic optimization techniques in the Forth 
community, and a strong belief - in spite of the evidence - that
Forth has a time-warping property that allows it to run faster than
compiled languages in spite of executing more instructions.

> They don't seem to grasp the significance of the programming
>truism "First get it right.  THEN make it smaller, faster, slicker,
>etc." 

In fact, that's a good argument for using Forth in the first place.
You take a language which allows rapid prototyping, and put your 
solution together in parts. The execution-time inefficiency of 
threaded code is made up for by implementation-time efficiency.
And if that gives the implementer time to use a better algorithm
or better tune the implementation, then the final result may
execute quicker to boot.

However, if you have to prototype basic language elements - like
structures and arrays - that have been around since before most
of us were born, then you lose most of the advantages you might
get.

				Peter Desnoyers
--
From: cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca (Christopher Browne)
Subject: Re: Sampler Forth
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, University of Ottawa
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 92 04:00:07 GMT

In article <int452w.716514917@lindblat.cc.monash.edu.au> int452w@lindblat.cc.monash.edu.au (Michael R. Geddes) writes:
>Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow) writes:
>
>>> (a) Forth is NEVER  going to be the fastest executing language.
>
>>That's not necessarily true.  If Forth had the support C has, it
>>would also have nice systems with Forth CPUs, and I think for equal
>>investment in hardware and programming time, the application in Forth
>>would run a lot faster. 
>
>I agree with this, but also, I have been told that better hardware can
>often give you a reasonable increase in speed, but better algorithms
>give you an order of magnitude increase in speed.  Forth is 'slow' on
>most systems because of the forth 'engine' that goes between machine
>code and forth code..  Forth is 'fast' because you can code all the
>critical bits with an efficient algorithm (not just by putting it into
>assembler, you don't always get small critical bits.).

The problem is that everybody takes a look at Forth and says "I can do
THIS to the interpreter/threading mechanism/whatever" and uses it to
essentially "redesign" the underlying data structures.

They wind up putting the proverbial cart before the horse - they
optimize before they know what the bottlenecks might be.  And they're
having so much fun optimizing that they tend to forget about actually
putting something new and original in terms of FUNCTIONALITY into it.

I'm currently working on a moderately large thesis project, using a
combination of linear regression code (being misused :-)) to optimize
linear programs, and a specialized "network simplex" solver.

I could have great fun trying to optimize the Network Simplex code;
(I've had great fun translating it from FORTRAN to C - NOT!)
unfortunately, this optimization would be of very little value, since
the bottleneck is in fact the regression code.  For problems of
trivial size, the time spent doing Simplex stuff is maybe 25%; as the
problems grow larger, it looks like it becomes insignificant.

Forth SHOULD allow programmers to optimize the IMPORTANT parts
("bottlenecks").  Unfortunately, it makes optimizations so
easy/obvious that I've always found it hard to actually get code to
WORK.

I'm not sure that Forth NEEDS to be the fastest executing language;
people have been able to live with the problems of Lisp garbage
collection, and still swear by Lisp.

Forth DOES need to make it possible to go fast; the typical built-in
assembler allows this quite eminently.

-- 
Christopher Browne
cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca
University of Ottawa
Master of System Science Program
From: Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Forth in the Marketplace
Date: 15 Sep 92 06:44:26 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Distribution: world

nick@sw.stratus.com (Nicolas Tamburri) writes:

> Please don't waste time, is right. Dick Pountain published a rudimentary
> Algebraic Notation input parser in BYTE a couple years back.  It looked
> pretty portable and extensible for anyone sick enough to want to use it.  :-)

There's a lot more than one "rudimentary" AN parser.  At one Forth-BC meeting,
two members showed their parsers.  Both worked, but one was very clean and
convenient.  The developer of that one needed to handle algebraic equations
easily for physics research, so he wrote a parser for Forth.  You used one word
(>math I think) to switch modes, wrote your equations using AN, then used
(math> ?) to return to normal RPN.

No, that's not a significant problem for Forth.

--

Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca
From: siddall@kenyon.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Simulation languages
Date: 11 Sep 92 16:30:27 GMT
Organization: Kenyon College

We're looking for some of the lastest S/W tools for discrete simulations, and
quite frankly, I'm in the dark on this one.  Used GPSS years ago and have heard
of Simscript.  Suggestions for PC or Unix solutions welcome!  Thanks.

			S. E. Siddall
			Director of Academic Computing
			Kenyon College - Gambier Ohio
						
                        siddall@kenyon.edu
From: smahn@vx.cis.umn.edu (Seokmin Ahn)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: HELP: I'd like to learn C++.  How?
Date: 15 Sep 92 20:58:15 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Minnesota
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1

HI! netters,

I'd like to start to learn about C++.  It seems like that I can't get a
job easily
without knowledge of C++.  Please, tell me how you started, books,
tutorials
and so on.

I know Fortran and C.  Also I have access for MS C/C++ 7.0, Apollo, IRIS
and SUN.  Reading those shelves of manuals is not the thing I'd like to
do.  Same 
as I didn't read an English dictionary to learn English.

Since there could be similar postings on this band, I prefer to receive
your
reply to my E-mail address to save other netter's time.

I appreciate your help in advance.  Thank you.
From: dingbat@diku.dk (Niels Skov Olsen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Inter-process comm. with OCCAM
Date: 12 Sep 92 14:57:42 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen

slaud@cc.curtin.edu.au writes:

>	" Inter-process communication between procedures with OCCAM "

>   I am required to compare inter-process communications of programming
>languages, and was told OCCAM implements this very well.

I would suggest reading the following paper:

	"Communicating Sequential Processes"
	by C.A.R Hoare
	in Communications of The ACM, August 1978

OCCAM's ipc mechanism is built upon, and virtually identical to CSP, as 
described in the classic paper by Hoare. 

Basically it's just synchronous communication over a channel, meaning
that communication will happen when both the sending and the receiving
processes are ready, and that either party waits if the other is not
ready.

Niels
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
From: fjh@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus James HENDERSON)
Subject: Re: Iteration in single assignment languages
Keywords: single assignment iteration
Organization: Computer Science, University of Melbourne, Australia
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 15:09:09 GMT

iain@sgi.com (Iain McClatchie) writes:

>I don't know and wonder how single assignment languages handle these three
>kinds of iteration, especially the last:
>
>1) Loops where you know over what you iterate at compile time.
>   for (i = 0; i < 20; i++) ...
>
>2) Loops where you know over what you iterate before you begin the loop.
>   for (i = a; i < b; i++) {expressions not involving a,b, or i}
>
>3) Loop where you discover over what you iterate as you iterate
>   for (i = 0; abs(z) < 2.; i = i + 1) z = z*z + c;
>
>My examples are coded in something like C, in which an array which is
>iterated over by i is allocated by the programmer beforehand, and it is
>his responsibility to get the size right.
>
>In a single assignment language, I would think that the values taken on
>by z must go into some array z, so that the individual values are
>seperately addressable.  Supposing the compiler cannot optimize away the
>array, how does it know what size it is?  Better yet, how is this third
>loop written in a single assignment language?

Single assignment languages normally use recursion instead of interation.
(The compilers will generally compile the recursive code into iterative
machine code, though - this is known as "tail-recursion optimization").

The first loop would be written in Prolog as
	loop :- loop(0).
	loop(I) :-
		(I >= 20 ->		% if I >= 20
			true		% then finish the loop
		;
			whatever(I),	% otherwise perform body of loop,
			I1 is I + 1,	% increment I,
			loop(I1)	% and recursively call loop
		).

The third loop might be written in Haskell as

	mandel::int -> complex -> (int, complex)
	mandel i z =
		if abs(z) >= 2.0 then
			(i,z)		-- return i and z
		else
			mandel (i+1) (z*z + c)
					-- recursively call mandel with
					-- new values of i and z

(If c was not a constant, then you would have to pass it as a parameter
as well as i and z).

-- 
Fergus Henderson             fjh@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU      
This .signature virus is a self-referential statement that is true - but 
you will only be able to consistently believe it if you copy it to your own
.signature file!
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
From: schongvm01@cc.curtin.edu.au
Subject: dir/reg
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 03:07:01 GMT

Hi Gurus,

I am having problem in producing hardcopy of Clipper reports with
bitmaps inserted into them.

    eg.  Hardcopy      .--------------------.
         of report     |                    |
                       |   Clipper Report   |
                       |                    |
                       |   .------------.   |
                       |   |  bitmap    |   |
                       |   |            |   |
                       |   |  eg. .PCX  |   |
                       |   `------------'   |
                       |                    |
                       `--------------------'

I know that there are Clipper routines which allow calling up bitmaps
on screen in writing your own Clipper application.  However, I'm not
sure if it's possible to insert bitmaps into Clipper reports.

If anyone has any Clipper source in doing the similar task, please
forward to the address below.  Or you can just leave your suggestions
in this group!

Any help or suggestion would be appreciated!




Vei-Ming Chong
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.-------------------------------------------------------------
| Vei-Ming Chong                                              |
| schongvm01@cc.curtin.edu.au                                 |
|-------------------------------------------------------------|
| School of Electrical & Computer Engineering                 |
| Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia.  |
`-------------------------------------------------------------'
Xref: sparky comp.lang.misc:2961 comp.lang.lisp:2380
From: ajtd@honey.st-and.ac.uk (Tony Davie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.lisp
Subject: functional bibliography
Date: 7 Sep 92 16:13:55 GMT
Organization: St.Andrews University

Hello,
Enough people expressed interest in a text-only copy of my functional
bibliography that I have made one and placed it at /pub/staple/pubs.txt
on our anonymous ftp machine tamdhu@dcs.st-and.ac.uk

It's in a kind of bastard refer format and uses %T for a title, %A for authors
%I for a unique index entry, %S for the source (which may be a reference to
another index --- that's the penalty for not using hypercard!), %K for
keywords and %C for comments.

I would be glad to receive errors, omissions and new entries.

Tony Davie
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
From: jdy@tcsuh.tcs.uh.edu (Jeffrey D. Younger)
Subject: PL/1 for UNIX
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Keywords:  PL/1 UNIX
Organization: TCSUH/IMB Research Cluster
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 21:52:00 GMT

I am looking for a full PL/1 implementation running under
UNIX System V. Any information is apreciated and will posted
for all to see.

Thanks
From: wb@arb-phys.uni-dortmund.de ()
Subject: Dynamic conflict solving in Yacc/Bison
Organization: Institut f. Arbeitsphysiologie a.d. Uni Dortmund
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 11:34:22 GMT

In an attempt to parse a language which needs dynamic priority
assignment (Algol68), I am trying the following hack. Does anybody know
a less risky method (the Bison manual warns about using $0)?

%{
#include	<stdio.h>
#include	<ctype.h>
%}

%start list
%token	DIGIT OP REDUCE
%right OP

%%

list:	/* empty */ 
	|	list stat '\n'
	|	list error '\n'
		{	yyerrok;	}
	;

stat:	{ $$='?'; } expr
		{	printf( "%d\n", $2 );	}
	;

expr:	expr OP expr
		{	$$ = binop($2, $1, $3);
			if( yychar==REDUCE ) yychar=OP;
			check( prio($0) );
		}
	|	number
		{
			check( prio($0) );
			$$ = $1;
		}
	;

number:	DIGIT
		{	$$ = $1;	}
	| number DIGIT
		{	$$ = 10 * $1 + $2;	}
	;

%%

check(p)  int p; {
	if( yychar == OP ) {
		if( prio( yylval) <= p ) yychar = REDUCE;
	}
}

prio(o) int o; {
	switch(o) {
	case '?' :  return 0;
	case '+' : return 5;
	case '-' : return 5;
	case '*' : return 6;
	case '&' : return 4;
	case '%' : return 6;
	case '/' : return 6;
	case '|' : return 4;
	default: printf( "error\n" );
	}
}
binop(o,x,y) int o,x,y; {
	switch(o) {
	case '+' : return x+y;
	case '-' : return x-y;
	case '*' : return x*y;
	case '&' : return x&y;
	case '%' : return x%y;
	case '/' : return x/y;
	case '|' : return x|y;
	default: printf( "error\n" );
	}
}

yylex() {
	int	c;
	while( (c=getchar()) == ' ' )
		;
	yylval = c;
	if( isdigit(c) ) {
		yylval = c - '0';
		return( DIGIT );
	}
	else if( c == '+' )	return( OP );
	else if( c == '-' )	return( OP );
	else if( c == '*' )	return( OP );
	else if( c == '&' )	return( OP );
	else if( c == '%' )	return( OP );
	else if( c == '|' )	return( OP );
	else if( c == '/' )	return( OP );
	return( c );
}

main()
{	return( yyparse() );	}

yyerror(s) char *s; {
	fprintf( stderr, "%s\n", s ); }
-- 
-- 
Dipl.-Math. Wilhelm Bernhard Kloke,
Institut fuer Arbeitsphysiologie an der Universitaet Dortmund
Ardeystrasse 67, D-4600 Dortmund 1, Tel. 0231-1084-257
From: MLC%26638.decnet@CONSRT.ROCKWELL.COM ("26638::MLC")
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Ada syntax poster
Date: 9 Sep 92 14:22:00 GMT

I posted this recently to comp.lang.ada without results,
so I thought I'd try here.

I recall seeing the availability of a wall poster with Ada syntax
diagrams on it.  These diagrams are the "rail-road" syntax
diagrams, similar to Wirth's Pascal diagrams.

Is this poster available, and if so, from whom and for how much?

Thanks,

Michael Cook
Internet: MLC@IBERIA.CCA.CR.ROCKWELL.COM
These are not the opinions of my employer.
From: amos@huji.ac.il (amos shapir)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: "Training" of programmers
Date: 15 Sep 92 15:01:50 GMT
Reply-To: amos@cs.huji.ac.il
Organization: Mail to News Gateway at Wang Labs

ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:

>A spelling flame is appropriate here, because one of the _major_
>software skills that people need is the ability to proof-read.  (And in
>areas where they are weak, good software engineers use such automatic
>tools as are available.)

Talking of automatic tools (for spelling in this case, but any design
tools are relevant in this discussion) reminded me of the following
poem  (I have no idea where it came from or who the author is):


I have a spelling checker
It came with my PC
it clearly marks for my revue
Mistakes I cannot sea.

I ran this poem threw it
I'm sure your pleased to no
Its letter perfect in its weigh
My speller told me saw.

:-)

--
	Amos Shapir		Net: amos@cs.huji.ac.il
Paper: The Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem, Dept. of Comp. Science.
       Givat-Ram, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
Tel: +972 2 585706               GEO: 35 11 46 E / 31 46 21 N
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
From: peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva)
Subject: Re: Scientists as Programmers (was Re: Small Language Wanted)
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 18:39:35 GMT

In article <180ignINN60q@network.ucsd.edu> mbk@lyapunov.ucsd.edu (Matt Kennel) writes:
> bevan@cs.man.ac.uk (Stephen J Bevan) writes:
> :    Despite what the CS gurus say, allowing the introduction of
> :    additional functions is not the same thing.

> : Semantically it is, and that is what really counts.

> Well that just about sums up the schism here. 

> Scientist computer not bit one syntax about care.

Shouldn't that be "scientist bit one syntax computer about care not"?

Forth you thinking-in, yoda talking like you will-be. soon natural this
becomes, calculators HP buying you are and.

(and (thinking 'lisp 'you) (writing 'like-this))
-- 
Peter da Silva                                               `-_-'
$ EDIT/TECO LOVE                                              'U` 
%TECO-W-OLDJOKE Not war?                        Have you hugged your wolf today?
Ferranti Intl. Ctls. Corp.      Sugar Land, TX  77487-5012       +1 713 274 5180
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
From: pjm@access.digex.com (Paul Masline)
Subject: Seeking information comparing various languages
Organization: Express Access Public Access UNIX, Greenbelt, Maryland USA
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 20:36:05 GMT

I am working on a project where we are comparing various languages to
determine the best language for a particular simulation to be
developed in.  If anyone knows of any studies which have been done
comparing various computer languages, or papers written on a
particular language which could help us with the comparison, I would
greatly appreciate hearing from you.  The languages which we are
considering are:

Eiffel
Clips
ModSim
Sim++
C++
Lisp
Ada

I have a fair amount of information on C++, List, and Ada, but any
further information would be welcome.

Thanks,
Paul Masline
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                       pjm@access.digex.com
                                       pjm@po.cwru.edu
=========================================================================
-- 
Paul Masline
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                       pjm@access.digex.com
                                       pjm@po.cwru.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
From: mwm@contessa.palo-alto.ca.us (Mike Meyer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Scientists as Programmers (was Re: Small Language Wanted)
Date: 8 Sep 92 00:52:17 GMT
Article-I.D.: contessa.mwm.1tcv
Distribution: world
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica
X-NewsSoftware: Amiga Yarn 3.4, 1992/08/12 15:49:52

In <BtwIqK.78M@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>, hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
> >   Also, mathematicians especially use lots of operators.
> 
> >They also use lots of Greek letters (at least in the sort of maths I
> >read).  It is reasonably easy to replace them with something else, and
> >IMHO you can do the same thing with the operators.  Of course I expect
> >that most mathematicians lament the loss of Greek characters when
> >writing programs, so I don't expect them to give up operators.
> 
> This is totally different.  The name of a variable is purely arbitrary,
> and any other string of symbols recognized as one is just as good.  But
> an operator is a constant, and cannot just be renamed.

Huh? When did operators become constants? They're just a shorthand
notation for some unary or binary functions, and the function they're
a shorthand for is variable. You said as much yourself:

> is A*B, for A and B matrices, is it
> the element-by-element product, or the matrix product?  I have used both.

> The CS people should not be telling users that the hardware/software
> combination is "smart."  Rather, they should emphasize that it is very
> unintelligent, but very fast--a super-fast sub-imbecile.

The CS people I know are doing exactly that. If I'd been associating
with people doing what you imply, I'd take a dim view of them myself.

	<mike
From: kers@hplb.hpl.hp.com (Chris Dollin)
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 08:39:00 GMT
Subject: Re: Opinions on case sensitivity in programming languages?
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, UK.
From: Seokmin Ahn <smahn@vx.cis.umn.edu>
Subject: HELP : I'd like to learn C++. How?
Organization: University of Minnesota
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 20:23:55 GMT


Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
From: schongvm01@cc.curtin.edu.au
Subject: HELP! print clipper report + bitmaps
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 03:02:42 GMT

Hi Gurus,

I am having problem in producing hardcopy of Clipper reports with
bitmaps inserted into them.

    eg.  Hardcopy      .--------------------.
         of report     |                    |
                       |   Clipper Report   |
                       |                    |
                       |   .------------.   |
                       |   |  bitmap    |   |
                       |   |            |   |
                       |   |  eg. .PCX  |   |
                       |   `------------'   |
                       |                    |
                       `--------------------'

I know that there are Clipper routines which allow calling up bitmaps
on screen in writing your own Clipper application. However, I'm not
sure if it's possible to insert bitmaps into Clipper reports.

If anyone has any Clipper source in doing the similar task, please
forward to the address below.  Or you can just leave your suggestions
in this group!

Any help or suggestion would be appreciated!




Vei-Ming Chong
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
INTERNET: schongvm01@cc.curtin.edu.au
Vei-Ming Chong
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia.