What sort of devs would your OS attract? :)

[mikegonta]

My OS, Kaph, will attract people interested in "plain English programming" with the Osmosian Order's compiler, modularity, simplicity, and how we can simplify by finding unconventional abstractions.

Sounds interesting.
Are you using Gerry's "IDE" as a starting point? It seems to be very "OS" like even though it's running on Windows.
The idiom programming language was heavily influenced by Plain English.

Code: Select all

Here is the networking time-out utility - FizzBuzz as written in plain English idiom
[
to fizz buzz up to a number is:
  loop
    break when a counter is past the number;
    set a flag;
    if the counter is divisible by 3 then
      display "Fizz"; clear the flag;
    and then;
    if the counter is divisible by 5 then
      display "Buzz"; clear the flag;
    and then;
    if the flag is set ? display the counter;
    display "\n";
  repeat;
]
the-idiom has reached the end of the line, where all good things must end.
There is no "end" in idiom, for idiom is an end in itself.

[eekee]

My OS, Kaph, will attract people interested in "plain English programming" with the Osmosian Order's compiler, modularity, simplicity, and how we can simplify by finding unconventional abstractions.

Sounds interesting.

Thanks!

Are you using Gerry's "IDE" as a starting point? It seems to be very "OS" like even though it's running on Windows.

It's nice, but I won't be. The IDE only looks like an OS; the GUI code is rather intertwined. I thought about adopting its practices as UI standards, but some elements aren't comfortable for me. The lack of clutter is nice, but the menus not so much, nor the uncopyable error string. If it were more featureful, I'd have a hard time with it. I've got some old UI ideas based on a command line below the application display area. I will likely have to implement an interpreter.

Internally, I started out expecting to use "the noodle" which is essentially the base library, but I'm starting to wonder if you're supposed to rewrite it to your own particular dialect. Doing so would help with the copyright issue. (I really ought to ask Gerry about the copyright.) It would also help with cases where I want to "fit a rider to a string," not "slap a rider on a string".

The idiom programming language was heavily influenced by Plain English.
[...code...]

Interesting! I didn't realise the code wasn't Gerry's plain English until I saw the question mark in the middle of a line. Then I saw the semicolons instead of period or comma, then the differing language for the ends of conditionals. It's all right, though Gerry's syntax is fine with me. I'm fine with pushing more complex condition bodies off into their own routines.

First you have to catch your haggis. Nippy wee beasties.

For who knows where the haggis hides,
Amidst these frozen mountain sides.
(That took me way back! XD)

[rdos]

I didn't think you would be. I'd love to have a business like yours, but I don't think my health would really allow me to be professional. (I still have hope that might change.) I've known several programmers with similar businesses; 1 person or a small team providing solutions with an OS or language they understand top to bottom. They're all around retirement age; you give me hope this business model can still work.

Well, I'm close to retirement too. I plan to gradually decrease my software work, and only focus on my operating system and let others take over the application. Instead, I will focus on neurodiversity research, hoping to make some real difference in that area.

[eekee]

Aw dang it! Well, the truth is my health may never be good enough for me to hold a job. There's no sense to thinking about my work choices too hard unless and until working becomes a possibility. I also keep in mind an account of a man who quit his high-pressure programming job to become a street-corner ice cream vendor. (He wanted to spend more time with his family.) Once he learned his customers' tastes, he made more money than he had as a programmer! I guess he was in web dev, but with business trending toward making more profit for less expenditure, I wouldn't want to get into a niche which may become high-pressure if it isn't already.

[mikegonta]

The idiom programming language was heavily influenced by Plain English.
[...code...]

Interesting! I didn't realise the code wasn't Gerry's plain English until I saw the question mark in the middle of a line.

That's a short form single statement conditional (sort of a nod to Gerry's all in one line conditionals).
The '?' is of course "then", there is also an "else if" or "otherwise" depending on the context with "||".

Code: Select all

  if <conditional> ?
   <single statement> ||
   if <conditional> ?
   <single statement> ||
   <single statement>;

Then I saw the semicolons instead of period or comma,

I find that the ';' is visually a stronger statement terminator. Yesterday, I added the '.' as a concatenation operator (like PHP).

then the differing language for the ends of conditionals.

I find that "and then" reads better as plain English (plus, there's no "end" in idiom ... ).

It's all right, though Gerry's syntax is fine with me. I'm fine with pushing more complex condition bodies off into their own routines.

I see that you recognize that in idiom loops and conditionals can be nested (something that Gerry is totally against).
Small, simple routines are a great suggestion for developing great code.
However, unless the compiler can inline these, it's not really a suggestion, but a language requirement.
And I think that less requirements are better.

[eekee]

It's all right, though Gerry's syntax is fine with me. I'm fine with pushing more complex condition bodies off into their own routines.

I see that you recognize that in idiom loops and conditionals can be nested (something that Gerry is totally against).
Small, simple routines are a great suggestion for developing great code.
However, unless the compiler can inline these, it's not really a suggestion, but a language requirement.
And I think that less requirements are better.

I prefer less requirements too, but implementing plain English without inlining means integer addition requires a subroutine call. I don't really want to special-case addition; I want operations for which there is no symbol to receive the same inlining treatment if appropriate. I'm not sure if CAL-4700 inlines automatically; I had a look just now and reached an ambiguous dead end. I keep running into such things. Anyway, I may not understand all parts of Gerry's compiler, but inlining in general hasn't scared me since Jonesforth. The INLINE word instructs Jonesforth to inline one machine-code definition within another. If CAL-4700 doesn't inline automatically, I might try to add the same feature. Then again, I don't think automatic inlining really need be any more complex.

I was amazed by nested loops when I was first learning to program. However, I've noticed that anything which is amazing wonderful and especially elegant to some programmers is wrong bad and sick to others. The older I get, the more I can see both sides; everything has pros and cons. Nested loops pretty-much require indentation, increasing complexity of the text editor and worse, its interface. I'm fine with indentation in editors which have tabs and, when you start a new line, simply copy indentation from the line the cursor is on, but many text editors don't quite work like that and I get confused. Why don't they work like that, and how many programmers will tell me my text editor isn't working right if it does? I don't want to know!

Besides this, I've always been interested in mobile scripting if not outright programming, but I've never figured out a suitable replacement for indentation to mark nesting. Lack of nesting takes the problem away.

I want to consider the rest, but I'm having one of my exceptionally tired phases and can't think it through properly. I did figure out why I didn't like the semicolons: It's because I've been trying to train myself not to write run-on sentences for years. That's not a technical reason, I'm sure the language is just fine with semicolons, but it reminds me of my old friend's reaction when I showed him Gerry's plain English code. It looked too much like something for young children for his taste. He wants something like another evolution of BASIC, but I'm getting on so much better with plain English that I want to stick with it for now, or something like it. Regardless of all I've said, Idiom might well be my next language.