From zio@netcom.com Mon Oct 4 02:06:10 1993 Newsgroups: alt.best.of.internet From: zio@netcom.com (James Elkinton) Subject: [from zer.z-netz.magazine.allgemein] Babbage Summary: Babbage Programming Language Keywords: babbage programming language humor technology Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 09:51:19 GMT What next?!? - Newsgroups: zer.z-netz.magazine.allgemein - Message-ID: <59bAhJl01k@TRAVELER.zer.sub.org> - From: tom@traveler.zer.sub.org - Organization: Z-NETZ BBS NetWork, FRG - Subject: Babbage ----- Babbage: The Language of the Future ----- by Tim McDonough, Rensselear Polytechnic Institute (reproduced without permission, but thanks anyway) The are a few things in this business that are more fun than designing a new computer language, and the very latest is Ada - the Department of Defense's new supertoy. Ada, as you know, has been designed to replace outmoded and obsolete languages such as COBOL and FORTRAN. The problem is that this cycle takes 20 to 30 years and won't start until we're really convinced present languages aren't any good. we can short-circuit this process by starting on Ada's replacement right now. Then, by the time we decide Ada is obsolete, its replacement will be ready. The new generation of language designers has taken on naming its brain children after real people rather than resorting to the usual acronyms. Pascal is named after the first person to build a calculating machine and Ada is named after the first computer programmer. As our namesake, we chose Charles Babbage, who died in poverty while trying to finish building the first computer. The new language is thus named after the first systems designer to go over budget and behind schedule. Babbage is based on language elements that were discovered after the design of Ada was completed. For instance, C.A.R. Hoare, in his 1980 ACM Turing Award lecture, told of two ways of constructing a software design: "One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies." The designers of Babbage have chosen a third alternative - a language that has only obvious deficiencies. Babbage programs are so unreliable that maintenance can begin before systems integration is completed. This guarantees a steady increase in the debug job marketplace. Like Pascal, Ada uses 'strong typing, to avoid errors caused by mixing data types. The designers of Babbage advocated "good typing" to avoid errors caused by misspelling the words in your program. Later versions of Babbage will also allow "touch typing", which will fill a long-felt need. A hotly contested issue among language designers is the method for passing parameters to subfunctions. Some advocate "call by name", other prefer "call by value". Babbage uses a new method "call by telephone". This is especially effective for long-distance parameter passing. Ada stresses the concept of software portability. Babbage encourages hardware portability. After all, what good is a computer if you can't take it with you? It's a good sign if your language is sponsored by the government. COBOL had government backing, and Ada is being funded by the department of defense. After much negotiation, the Department of Sanitation has agreed to sponsor Babbage. No subsets of Ada are allowed. Babbage is just the opposite. None of Babbage is defined except its extensibility - each user must define his own version. To end the debate of large languages versus small, Babbage allows each user to make the language any size he wants. Babbage is the ideal language for the "ME" generation. The examples that follow will give some idea of what Babbage looks like. Structured languages banned GOTOs and the multiway conditional branches by replacing them with the simpler If-Then-Else structure. Babbage has a number of new conditional statements that act like termites in the structures of your program: What if Used in simulation languages. Branches before evaluation test conditions. Or Else - Conditional Threat, as in "Add these two numbers or else!" Why Not? Executes the code that follows in a devil-may-care fashion. Who else? Used for polling during I/O operations. Elsewhere This is where your program really is when you think it's here. Going Going Gone For writing unstructured programs. Takes a random branch to another part of your program. Does the work of 10 GOTOS. For years, programming languages have used "FOR", "DO UNTIL", "DO WHILE", etc. to mean "LOOP". Continuing this trend, Babbage offers the following loop constructs: Don't Do While Not This loop is not executed if the test condition is not false (or if it's Friday afternoon). Didn't Do The loop executes once and hides its traces. Can't Do The loop is pooped. Won't Do The CPU halts because it doesn't like the code inside the loop. Execution can be resumed by typing "MAY I?" at the console. Might Do Depends on how the CPU is feeling. Executed if the CPU is "UP", not executed if the CPU is "DOWN" or if its feelings have been hurt. Do Unto Others Used to write the main loop for timesharing systems so that they will antagonize the users in a uniform manner. Do-Wah Used to write timing loop for computer-generated music (rag timing). Every self-respecting structured language has a CASE statement to implement multiway branching. ALGOL offers an indexed CASE statement and Pascal has a labeled CASE statement. Not much of a choice. Babbage offers a variety of statements: The Just-in-Case Statement For handling afterthoughts and fudge factors. Allows you to multiply by zero to correct for accidentally dividing by z e r o . The Brief Case Statement To encourage portable software. The Open-and-Shut-Case Statement No proof of correctness is necessary with this one. The In-Any-Case Statement This one always works. The Hopeless-Case Statement This one never works. The Basket-Case Statement A really hopeless CASE. The Babbage language Design Group is continuously evaluating new features that will keep its users from reaching any level of effectiveness. For instance, Babbage's designers are now considering the 'Almost Equals' sign, used for comparing two floating point numbers. This new feature "Takes the worry out of being close". No language, no matter how bad, can stand on its own. We need a really state-of-the-art operating system to support Babbage. After trying several commercial systems, we decided to write a "virtual" operating system. Everybody has a virtual memory operating system, so we decided to try something a little different. Our new operating system is called virtual Time Operating System (VTOS). While virtual memory systems make the computer's memory the virtual resource, VTOS does the same thing with CPU processing time. The result is that the computer can run an unlimited number of jobs at the same time. Like the virtual memory system, which actually keeps part of the memory on disk, VTOS has to play tricks to achieve its goals. Although all of your jobs seem to be running right now, some of them are actually running next week. As you can see, Babbage is still in its infancy. The Babbage language design group is seeking suggestions for his powerful new language, and as the sole member of this group (all applications for membership will be accepted), I call on the data processing community for help in making this dream a reality. Here is a small programming example in Babbage for others to use as a programming template: Program babbage_template by who else what if no_program_variables_exist then create_some Or Else! Might Do loop Just-in-Case program_runs_perfectly : Delete_source_ files; user_wants_modifications : Ask for raise; user_wants_demo : Crash_gracefully; user_wants_lobotomy : Continue; Or Else! Why Not Do Unto Others until user_panicks? Basket-Case user_pulls_out_hair : Do_wah until Elsewhere; user_pulls_out_terminal : Going Going Gone; user_enters_data : Can't Do input_data; user-wants-more : append_random_code_to_program _and_recompile; Or Else! Won't Do loop Windows; Diapers; Documentation; Loop-De-Doop. Loop-De-Doop. Margorp.