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From: zaft@nswses.navy.mil (Gordon C Zaft)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: Re: Babe in the Woods (long)
Summary: Info.
Message-ID: <5472@suned1.Nswses.Navy.MIL>
Date: 24 Sep 90 17:48:07 GMT
References: <31372@nigel.ee.udel.edu>
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In article <31372@nigel.ee.udel.edu> boutell@freezer.it.udel.edu (Tom Boutell) writes:
>I've been keeping an eye on this group out of rabid curiosity, but have
>yet to see an general information posting, so forgive the waste of
>bandwidth: what is icon? Is it a publicly available language? Does its
>name imply that it is a GUI- based language? I gathered this impression
>from a few ads seen long, LONG ago.
>
>i've seen mention of an MSDOS version, so I can't restrain my curiosity
>any longer. Please enlighten!

Quoted from "The Icon Programming Language", by Griswold & Griswold.

"Icon is a high-level, general-purpose programming language that 
contains many features for processing nonnumeric data, particularly
for textual material consisting of strings of characters.  Icon was
designed to aid in analyzing natural languages, reformatting data,
transforming computer programs, generating computer programs, 
manipulating formaulas, formatting documents, and so forth.  IT
is suited to situations where a quick solution is needed, one
that can be obtained with a minimum of time and programming effort.
Icon is extremely useful for 'one-shot' programs and for 
speculative efforts such as computer-generated poetry, in which a
proposed problem solution is more heuristic than algorithmic."

End quote.

	Icon is available for free, since it was written with
support of the NSF.  Icon was originally written by Ralph Griswold,
and a cast of thousands at the University of Arizona (my alma mater!).
Ralph Griswold, you may remember, was part of the team that developed
SNOBOL.

	Ports of Icon are available for most Unix machines, as well
as MS-DOS, VMS, and Macintosh (I believe the Macintosh version is
not available from UA but is a commercial project).

	You can get more information by writing:

	Icon Project
	Department of Computer Science
	University of Arizona
	Tucson, AZ  85721

	(602) 621-6613 (phone # is as of 1983 & may be different).

	I think you may also be able to anon. ftp  stuff from UA,
also, but I don't know the address.  

	The definitive book is 

	The Icon Programming Language
	Ralph E. Griswold & Madge T. Griswold, Prentice-Hall, 1983.
	ISBN 0-13-449777-5.

	I believe an updated book is on the way but I don't know if
it's been released yet.  The book describes version 5; the current
release is version 8.

	Hope this answers your questions.A
A
A
A
A
A
	
--
+  Gordon Zaft                        |  zaft@suned1.nswses.navy.mil         +
+  NSWSES, Code 4Y33                  |  suned1!zaft@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov      +
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