1. [GEN] Random Thoughts, Worth What You Paid For Them.
1. A certain thread makes my eyes glaze every time we're informed
that a line of code has changed. Still, I vote against splitting
the list. Sometimes I really do learn somthing.
2. I enjoy Mr. Fosberg's posts; they are always well written and
carefully thought out. There's a fine line between prattling and
writing at discursive length.
3. To those of you whining about the lack of a "real" compiler
for Euphoria, I have three words: THE DRAGON BOOK.
3a. A naive model of a compiler consists of 3 stages: Lexical
analysis, Syntactic Analysis, and Code Generation. Lexical
analysis extracts "tokens" from the source code and gives them to
the Syntax Analyzer, which then collects the tokens to see if it
can construct a legal statement; if so, code generation takes
place.
3b. So how hard can it be? You only have to be ~INTIMATELY~
familiar with the quirks of both the high-level language and
machine language. Shouldn't take more than three days, one day
for each phase of the compiler.
3c. Write an essay distinguishing between sarcasm and irony.
This counts as 240% of your final grade. Begin.
4. OX is interesting; I -think- I see where Mr. Cuny is going.
I'd been wishing for yacc & lex in Euphoria too. But I wonder
how difficult it would have been to implement precedence rules?
("...left as an exercise for the reader." ?)
Apropos of Nothing: For the longest time, I thought Mr. Cuny was
the author of Euphoria. He certainly seems to contribute... quite
a bit.
On a guess, is Mr. Cuny contemplating the creation of his own
language to compete with Euphoria? I'd bet on Mr. Cuny's language
in the long run, based on a single statement he made about the
nature of computer languages.
5. What's "orthogonality"? I have three books about compiler
construction on my desk, and the word is not in any of the
indexes or table of contents.
6. There is no number six.
7. There is (or was) a language called FORTH. FORTH's creator
eventually built a microprocessor that can be directly coded in
FORTH ... that is, the processor's assembly language -IS- FORTH.
I assume that some hardware guy somewhere is slapping together
microprocessor to execute Java bytecode. If Euphoria could emit
this bytecode, it would have a jump on other languages when such
a microprocessor becomes available.
8. Wouldn't Euphoria's "objects" more accurately be called
"generics" ?
R.
2. Re: [GEN] Random Thoughts, Worth What You Paid For Them.
On 15 Oct 2000, at 16:20, R. W. D. wrote:
> 4. OX is interesting; I -think- I see where Mr. Cuny is going.
> I'd been wishing for yacc & lex in Euphoria too. But I wonder
> how difficult it would have been to implement precedence rules?
> ("...left as an exercise for the reader." ?)
I wrote an additional 32K of machine code for the C64, back in 1987 or so, over
100
new instructions,, including some real fancy goto/gosub options. 
> Apropos of Nothing: For the longest time, I thought Mr. Cuny was
> the author of Euphoria. He certainly seems to contribute... quite
> a bit.
I did too! I even thanked him for doing it!
> 6. There is no number six.
Number six.... number six... number six.....
Hmm, you're right, no answer!
(Beatles reference)
> 7. There is (or was) a language called FORTH. FORTH's creator
> eventually built a microprocessor that can be directly coded in
> FORTH ... that is, the processor's assembly language -IS- FORTH.
>
> I assume that some hardware guy somewhere is slapping together
> microprocessor to execute Java bytecode. If Euphoria could emit
> this bytecode, it would have a jump on other languages when such
> a microprocessor becomes available.
You know you can buy several processors today that can be told to run any
bytecode
construct you want? They are all based on PLDs, and not only run fast as hell,
but
they can be told to run another bytecode block while running. So you could run
68000
code, then tell the same cpu to run 80xxx code, then 6502 or 603 code, no
rebooting,
no errors. You can do native multiprocessor schemes more easily this way than
with
cisc cpus too. And they can be extended width-wise,, tired of 64bit
proccessing?, slab
a couple cpu's together, add the 256bit code, and run it.
Combining #4 and #7 above, i also came up with a multitasking asynchronous
reconfigureable cpu design that was optimized for string handling, most 1ns
"clocks"
could exec several instructions at once, for instance, there were instructions
for using
the 128bit datapath (needed 128bits to keep the cpu fed with instructions fast
enough)
with all the cpu regs at once to do string searches. This had less overhead than
you'd
think, cause, for instance, stuffing all the regs to the stack was a single
500ps
instruction. And cause it was async with multiport registers, you could be
loading the
regs at the same time they were being saved out. I got as far as board layout
for it,
and money calculations (i needed $1200) and marketing feasablity (none),, and
dropped it.
Kat
3. Re: [GEN] Random Thoughts, Worth What You Paid For Them.
Since you mentioned me specifically, it seemed only polite to respond
(not to mention my glee at finding another "discursive" speaker) -
1) Me too, already stated for my part.
2) I think I often cross the line, but I'm trying to do better.
3) I , for one, wouldn't mind hearing some more about this - I'm
woefully weak on the subject (although I could care less about a
compiler for Euphoria).
3a/b) Seems to be covered by 3c, with a little emphasis on sarcasm.
However, I think it might be useful if one of our "system gurus"
would explain the limitations imposed by interpreters vs those
imposed by compilers - somehow I get the feeling that many requests
for "features" on this list don't take those relative limitations
into account. IOW, sometimes people seem to be asking for the Eu
interpreter to do things I thought were only feasible with a
compiler.
3c) Sarcasm is purely offense in the service of defense; irony
includes self-recognition, which is far more dangerous.
4) David (since he apparently doesn't like "Mr. Cuny") is a wonder
and a joy. When he gets a little older, I think he'll find that being
older is no big deal. I don't have a clue as to where he's going, but
I hope he continues to share some of his "trips" with us, because
it's a real pleasure. For at least one of us toiling in the world of
Windoz, he's certainly the co-author of Euphoria. (BTW, I prefer
"Ben" to "Mr. Fosberg" because I prefer the implied informality and
camaraderie - I'm way too old to worry about seeming, sounding, or
even being old.)
5) This one is rich (no irony or sarcasm) - not in the books, perhaps
because it's a "meta-concept" It's the ideal (or hope) that things
which appear to operate similarly can be controlled similarly. E.G,
all "American" cars have a very consistent "control interface" -
steering wheel, brake pedal, gear shift, speedometer, gas gauge,
etc., look and operate approximately the same, regardless of whether
you're in a Pinto or a Lincoln - or, for that matter, a Ferrari. The
problem with software, of course, is that the people who write it are
mostly, mentally and emotionally, under 12 years old, totally
ignorant of what is and has been going on around them, and think
their cute little twist is the greatest advance in the history of
civilization, while the folks who pay them could care less, as long
as they can hustle the public out of big bucks. (I believe this
situation is usually described as "the industry is very immature.")
The public, for it's part, is happy to buy the notion that it's all
magic, as long as they believe they can buy some of the magic.
Unfortunately, things that operate similarly can't always be
controlled similarly, and few people ever agree on what is or is not
similar - but who cares; we're living in the "new economy," whatever
that is.
6) OK.
7) Yes, there still is. It was developed originally (by an
astronomer) as a machine control language and is probably still
controlling the movement of many telescopes. When I was a CS student
(sometime before the discovery of mud) we had some "development
boards" based on a 6502 derived micro controller that executed FORTH
and some that did BASIC; today there are many micro-controllers that
execute all kinds of bytecodes, although BASIC seems to be the most
popular. I recall reading that one of Oracle's projects. at some
point, was a processor to execute JAVA. If the purported big
advantage of a language is that it's "cross-platform," what's the
point of building a processor to execute it?
8) Yeah, but it would probably break a lot of code.
Thanks for the discursion, and no apologies to Bernie for my
motormouth tonite,
Ben
"R. W. D." wrote:
> 1. A certain thread makes my eyes glaze every time we're informed
> that a line of code has changed. Still, I vote against splitting
> the list. Sometimes I really do learn somthing.
>
> 2. I enjoy Mr. Fosberg's posts; they are always well written and
> carefully thought out. There's a fine line between prattling and
> writing at discursive length.
>
> 3. To those of you whining about the lack of a "real" compiler
> for Euphoria, I have three words: THE DRAGON BOOK.
>
> 3a. A naive model of a compiler consists of 3 stages: Lexical
> analysis, Syntactic Analysis, and Code Generation. Lexical
> analysis extracts "tokens" from the source code and gives them to
> the Syntax Analyzer, which then collects the tokens to see if it
> can construct a legal statement; if so, code generation takes
> place.
>
> 3b. So how hard can it be? You only have to be ~INTIMATELY~
> familiar with the quirks of both the high-level language and
> machine language. Shouldn't take more than three days, one day
> for each phase of the compiler.
>
> 3c. Write an essay distinguishing between sarcasm and irony.
> This counts as 240% of your final grade. Begin.
>
> 4. OX is interesting; I -think- I see where Mr. Cuny is going.
> I'd been wishing for yacc & lex in Euphoria too. But I wonder
> how difficult it would have been to implement precedence rules?
> ("...left as an exercise for the reader." ?)
>
> Apropos of Nothing: For the longest time, I thought Mr. Cuny was
> the author of Euphoria. He certainly seems to contribute... quite
> a bit.
>
> On a guess, is Mr. Cuny contemplating the creation of his own
> language to compete with Euphoria? I'd bet on Mr. Cuny's language
> in the long run, based on a single statement he made about the
> nature of computer languages.
>
> 5. What's "orthogonality"? I have three books about compiler
> construction on my desk, and the word is not in any of the
> indexes or table of contents.
>
> 6. There is no number six.
>
> 7. There is (or was) a language called FORTH. FORTH's creator
> eventually built a microprocessor that can be directly coded in
> FORTH ... that is, the processor's assembly language -IS- FORTH.
>
> I assume that some hardware guy somewhere is slapping together
> microprocessor to execute Java bytecode. If Euphoria could emit
> this bytecode, it would have a jump on other languages when such
> a microprocessor becomes available.
>
> 8. Wouldn't Euphoria's "objects" more accurately be called
> "generics" ?
>
> R.
4. Re: [GEN] Random Thoughts, Worth What You Paid For Them.
>..we had some "development
>boards" based on a 6502 derived micro controller that executed FORTH
>and some that did BASIC;
(shiver) I fell sorry for the poor souls that had to write the
6502-implementations of FORTH/BASIC. I've done some sporadic attempts at
coding the NES and, in my opinion, it's a pure nightmare.
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5. Re: [GEN] Random Thoughts, Worth What You Paid For Them.
it WAS a nightmare - it goes a long way in explaining the ever present grey hair
of older programmers
At 12:43 PM 10/16/00 +0000, you wrote:
>>..we had some "development
>>boards" based on a 6502 derived micro controller that executed FORTH
>>and some that did BASIC;
>
>(shiver) I fell sorry for the poor souls that had to write the
>6502-implementations of FORTH/BASIC. I've done some sporadic attempts at
>coding the NES and, in my opinion, it's a pure nightmare.
>_________________________________________________________________________
>Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
>
>Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
>http://profiles.msn.com.
