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000136_icon-group-sender _Mon May 23 06:42:32 1994.msg
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1994-08-19
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Received: by cheltenham.cs.arizona.edu; Mon, 23 May 1994 09:35:00 MST
Date: Mon, 23 May 1994 06:42:32 -0600 (CST)
From: Chris Tenaglia - 257-8765 <TENAGLIA@MIS.MCW.EDU>
Subject: Re: wishlist?
To: icon-group@cs.arizona.edu
Message-Id: <01HCO3T4LOX48WW45U@mis.mcw.edu>
Organization: Medical College of Wisconsin (Milwaukee, WI)
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> From: IN%"eric@star-semi.com" 22-MAY-1994 17:55:08.74
> To: IN%"icon-group@cs.arizona.edu"
> Subj: wish list?
> Has someone collected the ideas, suggestions, and wish-list items?
> My usual experience with a new language (system, product, etc.) is that what
> it WILL do is clearly documented, but what it WON'T do (that you might expect
> it to) is only discovered by using it and "bumping into the walls."
I've bumped into those walls. The most blatant is:
every n := 0.0 to &pi*2.0 by &pi/180.0 do ...
'every' cannot increment by reals. It can only do integers, strings,
and structures. My other complaints are OS deficiencies. A feature that
works fine under SUNOS or HPUX doesn't work the same under Ultrix or VMS,
and sometimes doesn't work at all. The Icon Project told me that since
those aren't popular platforms at arizona.edu they really don't have the
time or people to look into it.
I've also had problems with the VMS versions unable to read files that
contain char(255) or \377 in them. This has been broken since V8.7 of
Icon. Under MS-DOS getch() was unbreakable in version 8.5, but is under
8.10, which weakened some password routines in my software. And it is
also annoying that kbhit(), getch(), and getche() behave differently
under VMS, UNIX, and DOS. The VMS version won't run unless your have
X-windows or Motif installed, even if you rebuild it with the X-flags
turned off. A lot of my gripes are because I write for so many
different environments. If you only do DOS, or only do unix your life
can stay simple.
> An (annotated?) collection of wish-list features would help to establish
> the boundaries of the language and circumscribe the problem domain in which
> it is appropriate.
Icon seems to have 2 goals. I/O (files, pipes, and windows), and portability.
Icon's portability is achieved by having a run time 'system' (virtual
machine) that offers the same services to the language across all platforms.
This is achieved by having C and OS gurus define the interfaces to the
internals of the OS. The more consistent the design of the interfaces and
the services offered across OS's the more portable the language. The
more they do to hide the internals of a CPU from us, the more energy we
can devote to solving the problem, and less fighting with the architecture.
They've begun this now on the windowing implementations. This will unify
the windowing between X-Windows, MS-windows, and OS/2 (presentation mgr).
One of my wishlist things is in this same category, but it could be done
as a user developed procedure too. It would be to have a uniform file system
notation. This would avoid stuff like:
file := case OS of
{
"MS-DOS" : "C:\\ICON\\CFG.DAT"
"VMS" : "DISK1:[ICON]CFG.DAT"
"UNIX" : "/usr/lib/icon/cfg.dat"
"AMIGA" : ????
"ATARI" : ????
"MAC" : ????
"MVS" : ????
}
Another popular wish is for regular expression pattern matching although
this could be written in user routines if someone had the time and patience
to sink into it. Bidirectional pipes might be cool too to permit better
interprocess communication.
> thanks
> eric --new icon-ite. or is that "icontaket" as in "I con take it" (boo...)
> iconizer? icon-duit? iconC, iconC! (iconCede!)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Eric Armstrong eric@star-semi.com (408) 526-2160 x170
> Star Semiconductor 2951 Zanker Road San Jose CA 95134