Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!orstcs!ogccse!blake!uw-beaver!sumax!amc-gw!nwnexus!intek01!mark
From: mark@intek01.UUCP (Mark McWiggins)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: Re: Why ICON?
Message-ID: <236@intek01.UUCP>
Date: 28 Aug 89 03:05:41 GMT
References: <223000001@s.cs.uiuc.edu>
Organization: Integration Technologies Inc. (Intek), Bellevue WA
Lines: 31

mccaugh@s.cs.uiuc.edu writes:


>I have been reading this notesfile for awhile, and must say I am mystified by
>its very presence. What is ICON? What is so special about it as a lanaguage
>that it merits its own notesfile? So far, most of what I've read has been
>about ICON bugs in Amiga! I would appreciate some explanation about the
>purpose of this language and whether it is at all worth learning.

Icon is the successor to Snobol4, a rather weird and wonderful pattern-matching
language developed by Ralph Griswold et. al., I guess reaching back into the
60's.

Griswold and cohorts took some of the ideas from Snobol and put them into a
more structured, Pascal-ish language.  (Snobol control structures are
unusual.)  I haven't really used it, but I have the book and it looks good.
I've seen a reference recently on automatic generation of compiler BACK ENDS
(not just another parser generator) that was written in Icon, so obviously
some high-powered types find it useful.

I also understand that it runs pretty much everywhere and on everything, and
since it was developed by public money it's pretty much public domain.  (Last
I heard; I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.)

I've been meaning to look further into Icon myself for a while, and may have
just convinced myself ... :)
-- 
Mark McWiggins			Integration Technologies, Inc. (Intek)
+1 206 455 9935			DISCLAIMER:  I could be wrong ...
1400 112th Ave SE #202		Bellevue WA  98004
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