HLL and misa...

[garth zenie]

On Fri, 16 Jun 95 18:19:40 MET DST  Francois-Rene Rideau wrote:

> Well, please tell me how you could convince them. Who are they ?

they are the lemelson foundation.  

> What is your exact situation? 

we justify an expenditure and they give us the money.  the more money
that we want for any given thing the more buerocracy we have to deal
with.  as poor college students it has been very helpful.  alot of the
money has gone towards thousands of printouts of language
specification and research off of the net.  it is very easy to get
money for that kind of thing (and books, a whiteboard, ...).  big
expenditures are another story...

> How did you meet them ? 

they work through my college as well as MIT.  each year some large
number of people apply for grants a few actually get them.

> What arguments did you use ?

our argument was simple and straightforward.  we said we wanted to
design a programming language for the 21st century.  we wanted to
design it in such a way that it would be able to incorperate future
technologies without sacrificing the simplicity and consistency of the
language.  we did not say how we were going to do this because the
people who decide who gets the money know nothing about programming
languages.  

> What constraints did they put on your help ?

no contraints really.  they like to know that we are doing work before
they approve the latest purchase.  we have to (or are supposed to)
find a way every few months to demonstrate that we have been doing
work.

>    I hope that you won't disappoint them. I wish I can help !

you can.  you all seem like an intelligent group of people and i hope
to bounce some of the latest of our research with you.  any comments
our suggestions are very welcome.

i can tell you right now - you're not going to find a language which
meets the requirements of your HLL.  we have spent enormous amounts of
time scouring the net for a language which provides what misa will
provide (which is more or less what you require for you HLL).

perhaps even if this language turns out to be what you are interested
in, you could use it for the basis of your HLL. 

> meanings of this word -- see the TUNES Glossary): the changes it
> brings will completely change the world, yet, they'll seem obvious to
> everyone and noone will be able to tell who saw it first.

:) yes.  there are very few new ideas in programming.  what lacks is a
good integration of the best of those ideas.

>    BTW, I'm in trouble with respect to school: if I don't want to
> lose a year, I need do a training period and publish a technical
> report about it before september ! I'm currently on the trail of
> something in France, but if you can get me something serious in the
> UK, I'll jump at once !

i live in america (though i am a dual american/english citizen).  we
are very serious about this language.  i am getting a stipend to work
on it for the tail half of the summer.  unfortunetly i could not hook
you up with the same deal (the summer stipend application process
ended a few months ago).

i would, however, be very interested in getting more people involved
with the definition of this language.  you and anybody else is
welcome.  

unfortunetly the latest version of our spec is quite old and outdated.
my other work companions are currently working full time as am i.  i
will try to find time in my busy schedule to update the spec so that
you all might know exactly what point we are in our development.

suffice it to say that we are far from done but that we have gotten
far enough to implement a prototype language environment in common
lisp.  

now for the fun stuff :0 ...

[about s-exp and their definition in terms of data structures and
other low level terms]

> things should be specifiable independently. It should be possible to
> program a high-level thing, then map it into a completely different
> low-level implementation than cons cells.

this is exactly our conclusion.  tieing syntax into low level
implementation details is a big mistake.  the syntax model should be
an abtraction and an object just like everything else.  

my point was that on the abtract level s-exp are very useful.  never
mind the fact taht it's in a linked-list which has cars and cdrs and
all that nonsense.

it is the _defined_, _simple_, structure that makes LISP so powerful.
the C syntax is much to complex to achieve the runtime modification
which is possible in LISP (not to mention all of the other things
which make it a static language istead of a dynamic one).

what we need is a defined (and, of course, redefinable) simple syntax
which is easily modifiable during runtime.  s-exp is one of the best
currently available syntaxes.  

>    Sure, any working environment should provide a default way to implement
> things, and cons cells are an easy way for that. But this really *should
> not* be part of any language standard.

agreed.

> > it is very useful in AI (which i study) to be able to modify your code
> > during runtime.
>    I fully agree. But why only in AI ? In everything !

also agreed.

>    Hehe. I'd be glad we communicate in French. However, people on the
> TUNES list come from all over the world, and I fear English is the only
> fit language :( :( :( :( :(

well thats silly.  we should not only make up our own programming
language - we should also make up the language with which we
communicate on this list :)

> (Ecole Normale Superieure) of rue d'Ulm (if that tells you anything).
> I also happen to live in Paris (lucky I), which is a very beautiful town,
> though pollution is making it less bearable every year (but we're far from
> what happens in Athens, happily).

that is unfortunate.  i wasn't aware of this.  when i visited paris
however many years ago (more than 10) -  i remember being impressed by
it much more that a lot of other places i had visited.  of course i
was very young.

more later....

-- garth