[self-interest] Kansas and Tcl

Albertina Lourenci lourenci at lsi.usp.br
Fri Mar 5 20:43:39 UTC 2004



Randy Smith wrote:

Thanks Randy! Indeed in the same paper Ousterhout recognizes
there are many interesting languages that cannot be characterized
cleanly as a system programming language or a scripting language.
For example, the LISP family of languages lies somewhere between
scripting and system programming with some of the attributes of each.

LIsp pioneered concepts such as interpretation and dynamic typing
that are now common in scripting languages, as well as automatic
storage management and integrated development environments which
are now used in both scripting  and system programming languages.
Do you think Self plays the role of a programming and scripting language?
I don''t have the book or have experienced with Tcl or Motif
to check if indeed it deals with policy or strategy perfectly well.
Indeed Agile Development Software Ecosystems try to do this.
However they try to do this based on natural language! Something
like Christopher Alexander does in his books A pattern language or
The Nature of Order. Indeed the general theory of the sign from
Peirce tries to overcome this difficulty. And the Greimasian semiotics
unfolds the same concern in a more scientific way I believe.
(My postdoctorate Scientific Report III deals with this - see my homepage -
however I was shyly trying to unravel a morphodynamic level there)
I have not gathered my recent conclusions about this in a report yet.


> Okay Albertina, I'll try to respond for you here: Self's GUI was never
> tuned to being like Motif or being fully brought up to address the
> construction of stand alone, single apps. Rather we were exploring the
> sense of a world in which many applications could be created and
> recombined. Nevertheless, our hypothesis has always been that the
> difficulties Ousterhout observes (the problem of bridging the direct GUI
> environment with a general purpose programming language) can be
> addressed. There are difficulties of course, and deep issues such as the
> fact that direct GUI assembly and modification is a different
> environment than the textual environment of the language's code.

See my main problem with graphical user interfaces is that
they are based on Euclidean geometry. My algebraic-geometric modeling
is based on symmetry groups of the plane and the dotless plane
(similarity symmetry groups and conformal symmetry groups).
And of course the underlying algebra is textual transformable
into geometric groups. This is cool! Likewsise graph theory where
we also have  planar graphs.
Hence I would like to mimic this in a collaborative aware
architecture. Of course the (hermeneutic = dialogue, chat, game) nature
of the Self language matches
my artistic needs. However I think there are too many things implicit
in the programming environment.
I know nothing about Motif but to pick up ready stuff sounds nasty.
Of course Self (Kansas) tries to bridge the gap between programmers
and language developers.
One should strive to embed things in an infinitely  encompassing level of
abstraction.I was successful to do this in my domain model as well
as in my geometric modeling. Why not to pursue the same goals
in architecture and programming code of my knowledge system to
design and plan sustainable cities?
Best wishes
Albertina
> http://www.lsi.usp.br/~lourenci

>
>
> Albertina Lourenci wrote:
> >
> >
> > Randy Smith wrote:
> > Hi Randy!
> > John K. Ousterhout in IEEE Computer March 1998 writes:
> > I am not aware of any rapid-development environments for
> > GUIs based on a system programming language. Whether the
> > environment is Windows, Macintosh Toolbox or Unix Motif
> > GUI toolkits based on languages such as C or C++ have proven
> > hard to learn, clumsy to use, and inflexible in the results
> > 'they produce.Some of these systems have nice graphical tools
> > for designing screen layouts that hide the underlying language,
> > but things become difficult as soon as the designer has to write
> > code, for example to provide the behaviors for the interface elements.
> > All of the best rapid development GUI environments are based
> > on scripting languages: Visual Basic, HyperCard and Tcl/TK. page 28
> >
> >
> > I would like you to comment on Self's GUI within the context
> > put forward by Ousterhout. For him scripting languages deal
> > with policy and system programming languages with mechanisms.
> > He sees no problem in implementing scripting languages in
> > programming languages of course. Indeed TCl is implemented
> > in C. It may also be extended in C.
> >
> > Have a fun-filled, peaceful, creative weekend
> > Albertina
> > http://www.lsi.usp.br/~lourenci
> >
> >> TCL already existed before John Osterhaut (spelling?) joined Sun, and
> >> while Tcl was here, there was very little mutual influence between the
> >> Self and TCL groups, since both were rather mature and conceptually far
> >> apart by the time.
> >>
> >>         --Randy
> >>
> >> Albertina Lourenci wrote:
> >> > Dear Selfers!
> >> > I am curious if there are any relationship
> >> > between Kansas and Tcl, both from Sun!
> >> > Best wishes
> >> > Albertina
> >> > http://www.lsi.usp.br/~lourenci
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >>
> >>
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> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
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