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From: xtbjh@levels.sait.edu.au (behoffski)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: AvAaA: (try Forth?)
Message-ID: <16307.282aad14@levels.sait.edu.au>
Date: 10 May 91 04:54:19 GMT
References: <5764@mindlink.bc.ca>
Organization: University of South Australia
Lines: 31

In article <5764@mindlink.bc.ca>, Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow) writes:
> I suggest that you read "Thinking Forth" by Leo Brodie.  Forth's postfix
> notation makes adverbs and adjectives (natural language modifying words) easy
> to implement.  FORTH also allows applications to use near-natural language.
> For instance, LIGHT BLUE BOX might add a light blue box to your screen.  LEFT
> QUICKLY MOVE  DOWN SLOWLY MOVE might control a robot arm.
> 
> Take a look at Forth; it's a good language for writing other languages.

Perhaps not surprisingly, some of my ideas can be traced back to PostScript, 
which can be traced back to Forth.  You will find that assembly language is 
often rich in adjectives and adverbs -- my favourite is the Zilog 
mnemonics for the Z80 .vs. the Intel mnemonics -- but this was abandoned 
when algebra was chosen as the base.  

Thanks to ideas provided by a superb software/hardware engineer, David 
Knight, I've also considered the relationship of language design to 
circuit diagrams.  The verb "add" (e.g. in PostScript) can be contrasted 
to a single inverter in a package -- it costs heaps to use, but is 
convenient.  When you want some performance, then you combine the 
primitive in a larger component (e.g. rendering fonts can be compared 
to a VLSI circuit).  

I'm not that familiar with Forth, so: is there any special reason that 
your examples use upper case?

cheers,
behoffski
-- 
Brenton Hoff (behoffski)  | Senior Software Engineer | My opinions are mine
xtbjh@Levels.UniSA.edu.au | AWA Transponder          | (and they're weird).