Re: History of SSG and Symstream on 2200?

Mark,
despite the criticisms - I for one will say a big "Thank-you" for this
port.

Sure, it doesn't have everything - but it does exactly the sort of thing
you describe above, which is a large part of what people might actually want
to use it for.

Thanks
Colin

"Mark" <mrockman@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1176906592.154947.158130@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Apr 17, 11:42 pm, Stephen Fuld <S.F...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
sjm wrote:
On Apr 4, 12:40 pm, Stephen Fuld <S.F...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

snip

So the last point is that, if it is so useful, one could write a
generalized parser for SGS syntax input as a Python library and have
it
easily available for everyone. Then a user could invoke it any time
they wanted to handle such syntax and still have all the other
advantages of Python. That sounds like a reasonable project for one
so
inclined. Steve Martin????

I've thought about doing exactly this but haven't gotten around to it!

With the posting of the Windows port of SSG, I had thought it might be
useful to have a collaboration - Mark obviously has the code to parse
SGSs and Steve has the Python experience, so perhaps (if both were
willing) Steve could port Mark's code to a callable subroutine that
could be used with Python, or indeed any other such scripting language
such as Ruby).

However, after thinking of how that might work, I came up with a reason
why it probably wouldn't be as useful as others, and I used to think.
By its nature, the handling of SGSs is a batch, i.e. non interactive,
process. Perhaps the easiest way to see this is to see that, in order
to use the variable [label], which gives you the number of lines with a
given label, you have to have read all the lines, and in fact know that
there are no more lines to read. So processing SGSs from say Python
would only work in a non interactive way. This seems antithetical to
the way Python (and most scripting languages, but notably not
SSG/Symstream) works. In Python, you would typically accept an input,
parse it and act upon it before accepting another input, i.e.
interactive.

So there is a "paradigm mismatch" between SSG and most modern scripting
languages that would make adoption of an SGS parsing subroutine for them
less useful than one might think.

On a related note, how about the opposite? Since most of these
languages are open source, has anyone ported one of them to the 2200,
or, for that matter, the A series? That might be the more useful
approach.

--
- Stephen Fuld
(e-mail address disguised to prevent spam)

In re my crippled version of SSG for Windows. I implemented it
because I long wanted some of the features of SSG, mainly so I could
create repetitive C++ and C# code in the construction of container
objects, and such, from SGSses. This is more convenient than writing.
for example, a C++ program to do the same thing. I know I have not
implemented the full version of SGS, which I think is elegant, if
rooted in "legacy" and "the past." Unless someone at Unisys had a
fiscal mental breakdown, SSG is still implemented in good old assembly
language. If we had a way to port that code through automated
retranslation to a modern language, SSG in its full glory would become
available to the WORLD! Which would yawn. I think I would rather
work with the assembly relocatable elements to avoid having to
reimplement Mr. Zave's marvelous MASM program. If a 2200 relocatable
to C# translator existed, it would be possible to port many things
besides SSG to PC, like @DOWN, for example. Then, later, there is
possibility of a PLUS to C# translator. Talk about your open source
communal work for social justice kind of thing!

Mark Rockman



.

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