Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bbn!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!C7.IUS.CS.CMU.EDU!ralphw From: ralphw@C7.IUS.CS.CMU.EDU (Ralph Hyre) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Block Closure Message-ID: <1545@pt.cs.cmu.edu> Date: 27 Apr 88 13:06:55 GMT References: <2853@enea.se> <2400014@otter.hple.hp.com> <918@rlgvax.UUCP> <757@l.cc.purdue.edu> <732@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU> <748@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU> <369@aiva.ed.ac.uk> Sender: netnews@pt.cs.cmu.edu Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI Lines: 19 Keywords: BOXER Summary: Media Lab didn't In article <369@aiva.ed.ac.uk> ken@uk.ac.ed.aiva (Ken Johnson,E32 SB x212E) writes: >jefu@pawl14.pawl.rpi.edu (Jeffrey Putnam) writes: >>In a nice bitmap oriented editor, blocks might be indicated by >>drawing lines around the block,... > >The MIT Media Lab developed a language called `Boxer' ... Sorry, this isn't quite true. It was developed at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, Hal Abelson (of SIOCP (Scheme) fame) and Andi DiSessa (I probably mangled the spelling, sorry Andi) were the developers. I believe Andi's now at Berkeley. Boxer borrows a lot of language concepts from LOGO, but the designers though a lot about Scheme as well, as might be expected. The implementors thought about putting up a Boxer front-end to ZetaLisp, since Symbolics machines were what it was developed on. So Boxer is a programming environment as well as a language, and it is possible to think about decoupling the environment stuff from the language, although it would greatly clutter up the syntax. Disclaimer: I hung out with the Boxer group from 1982-83, so I was there, seeing it happen.