Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!killer!tness7!tness1!sugar!peter
From: peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: More DMouse 1.03 bugs
Message-ID: <2067@sugar.UUCP>
Date: 1 Jun 88 03:56:26 GMT
References: <8805171931.AA07452@decwrl.dec.com> <9163@oberon.USC.EDU> <5768@cup.portal.com>
Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX
Lines: 39

In article <5768@cup.portal.com>, doug-merritt@cup.portal.com writes:
> I wrote about creating a script language for Commodities Exchange.

> Peter da Silva replied:
> >AREXX is a decent scripting language. It's not well suited to handling
> >things other than text strings directly, but you can put in a level of
> >abstraction to hide the stuff.

> Hmmm...I didn't use any arguments about technical merit. Ok, consider
> this...what I was talking about for CX doesn't need *any* of the features
> of AREXX. It doesn't need pattern matching, it doesn't need real smart
> IPC control, it doesn't need control structures.

AREXX doesn't have real smart IPC control. It has the ability to send a text 
string to a named port, and get a text string in response. But that's
quibbling. It may well be overkill.

> harder than it would be with a simple script language. And it would be
> overkill to boot. CX already supports all of the *functionality* you
> need; it's just that currently you need to tell it what you want via
> a C program. I'm proposing a more human friendly interface, that even
> non-programmers could use, that's all.

Now a general-purpose scripting package is also a good idea. I've been thinking
of Xlisp, but it's pretty big (over 64K). A small forth-like language would be
ideal. A tiny lisp would be better.

Matt Dillon's DME/DTERM stuff is OK, though the lack of variables in DTERM
is a big pain in the neck. Perhaps encapsulating these routines would be a
good idea. Or maybe ripping the interpreter stuff out of Micro-Emacs.

> It's not like you to have knee jerk reactions, Peter. Usually you think
> things out very clearly.

Thanks for saying so. I try.
-- 
-- Peter da Silva      `-_-'      ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter
-- "Have you hugged your U wolf today?" ...!bellcore!tness1!sugar!peter
-- Disclaimer: These may be the official opinions of Hackercorp.