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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!mcvax!steven
From: steven@mcvax.UUCP (Steven Pemberton)
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: The B Programming Language
Message-ID: <5465@mcvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 7-Nov-83 10:24:46 EST
Article-I.D.: mcvax.5465
Posted: Mon Nov  7 10:24:46 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 8-Nov-83 20:54:39 EST
Organization: Math.Centre, Amsterdam
Lines: 42

There is a newsletter on the B programming language now published, and if you
wish to be put on the mailing list, please mail your request to

	...!{philabs, decvax}!mcvax!leo
or
	B Group
	Computer Science Department
	CWI
	POB 4079
	1009 AB Amsterdam, The Netherlands

* B is a programming language for non-professional computer users, also of
  interest to experts. It is a fairly conventional language, but has 
  high-level data-types, and is fully orientated to ease of learning and use.
* B offers all the advantages of strong typing as in Pascal, but without the
  declarations, the types being inferred from context.
* The 5 types of B, easily combined to implement other types, are: number,
  text (strings), compound (like Pascal records), list, and table (generalized
  arrays). Apart from sheer exhaustion of memory, B imposes no limits, so
  identifiers may have any length, numbers any magnitude, lists any size, etc.
* To support top-down programming, B has refinements, which behave like
  parameterless light-weight procedures.
* Nesting is indicated by indentation, so there is no need for begin...end,
  nor can contradiction between indentation and program structure arise.
* Global variables are permanent in B, and since values like lists and tables
  may be extended at will, there is no need for files and file-handling.

For further details, see "An Overview of the B Programming Language"
by Leo Geurts, in SIGPLAN Notices December 1982.

To give a taste of B, here is code that takes a table mapping countries to
capitals (eg capital['Nederland'] = 'Amsterdam'), and produces the inverse
table (so that afterwards country['Amsterdam'] = 'Nederland'):

	PUT {} IN country
	FOR land IN keys capital:
	    PUT land IN country[capital[land]]

B has been running on Vaxes since 1981, and a portable implementation,
written in C, will be available shortly. Information from the above address.

Finally: the name 'B' is a working title: B is unrelated to C's predecessor.