Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!hao!gatech!rutgers!rochester!PT.CS.CMU.EDU!K.GP.CS.CMU.EDU!lindsay From: lindsay@K.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.lang.misc,comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.atari.st,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.apollo,comp.sys.m68k Subject: Re: SNOBOL for Amy Message-ID: <406@PT.CS.CMU.EDU> Date: Sat, 28-Nov-87 16:17:39 EST Article-I.D.: PT.406 Posted: Sat Nov 28 16:17:39 1987 Date-Received: Mon, 30-Nov-87 04:15:32 EST References: <18476@amdahl.amdahl.com> <2034@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu> <18763@amdahl.amdahl.com> <324@mks.UUCP> Sender: netnews@PT.CS.CMU.EDU Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI Lines: 21 Keywords: SNOBOL languages Catspaw Icon Awk Xref: mnetor comp.sys.amiga:11674 comp.lang.misc:917 comp.sys.mac:10389 comp.sys.atari.st:6527 comp.sys.ibm.pc:10584 comp.sys.apollo:567 comp.sys.m68k:669 Gee, that's a hefty list of newsgroups. I promise not to do it again. Summary: I've used Snobol, AWK, and Icon. I don't use Snobol or AWK any more. Reason: versus Snobol - Icon is structured: it has local variables, and so on. It feels much more like a conventional language, without giving up (much) in the pattern matching side. Versus AWK: more powerful - more data types, more constructs. Versus both: zippo features like generators ( a language construct based on coroutine execution ). Separate compilation and linking - essential for any large effort, and fast enough to be OK for those five-liners. Also, this allows you to link in programs written in other languages, hence, reuse previsous code, or do any obscure system calls. My experience: I've booted two successive Icon distribution tapes, each on both a Vax (4.2BSD) and a Sun-3. No sweat. Fast enough compilation for short quickies, fast enough execution for munging big input files. One bug found: Arizona gave me a writearound very quickly and fixed it in the next release. -- Don lindsay@k.gp.cs.cmu.edu CMU Computer Science