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Date:	Wed, 26 Mar 2008 08:09:59 -0700
From:	"Lynn H. Maxson" <lmaxson@pacbell.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-programming@scoug.com
To:	"SCOUG Programming SIG" <scoug-programming@scoug.com >
Subject:	SCOUG-Programming: Acculturation In programming

Content Type: text/plain

Now that the SCOUG server seems back on track after
parroting Steven Levine for the umteenth time and I may have
a run of no conflicts for the third Saturday for awhile, I
would like to get on track again in our pursuit in the
Programming SIG.

In my last epistle I referenced the Microsoft announcement of
a new programming language based on a fourth generation
"declarative" form using logic programming like SQL, Prolog
and our own SL/I. I suspect that this thinking outside the box
by MS will not include a deviation from the use of "int" and
thus inferior and lack the specification universality of SL/I.

However, no response thus far from the open source
community should give us reason for pause. The OS/2-eCS
community already lagging behind on major open source
applications should look at the lack of response as a serious
threat to its future.

Now we must have a reason for MS's declarative language
announcement which like SL/I lies in logic programming, the
whole field of AI and neural networks, reflected in SQL,
Prolog, and Trilogy. I have chosen the view that it derives
from an acquired, internalized perspective on problem solving
that in the social sciences comes under the term of
"acculturation".

Acculturation, the acquiring of a new perspective, needs to
occur to take full advantage and in fact not retard the
optimum use in this instance of a new language. Thus we
should accompany the shift from a third-generation
"imperative" language to a fourth-generation "declarative"
language with a perspective that essentially causes us to look
a familiar situations or problems differently.

In point of fact the failure to do so among the differences in
the family of "imperative" languages, e.g. when you carry
your C culture into that of APL, means treating the new the
same as the old. Thus you fail to gain that optimal use.

The truth of this lies in other areas as well. For example, we
need to look at a PM application differently than a non-PM
one. Too often we get bogged down in the programming
details and do not develop the concomitant perspective, the
acculturation, that leads to optimal PM capabilities.

Now we have proposed in SL/I something else different from
MS: an integrated interpreter/compiler. We do it because that
"environment" which optimizes programmer productivity, i.e.
interpretive, differs from that which optimizes transaction
performance, i.e. compiled. Thus we have the need to insure
the optimal conditions for both.

Now APL, LISP, FORTH and more recently PHP offer
interpretive support. While PHP "borrows" from LISP and
implemented in C, our three "basic" languages (APL, LISP,
FORTH) differ from each other in terms of approaching solving
of the same problems, thus a separate acculturation for each
should occur to optimize their use. That means absorbing or
internalizing their linguistic differences.

Now we cannot write an interpreter/compiler without knowing
how period. An interpreter differs from a compiler even
though derived from the same source. I propose that we look
at the "basic" three (APL, LISP, FORTH) to, one, acculturate
their linguistic differences (the optimal perspective of each)
and, two, to gain the broadest insight to interpretive
implementation.

I have deliberately ignored BASIC, for which both compilers
and interpreters exist though not in a single implementation.
If we so choose, we can include it as seemingly even Bill
Gates managed to implement it though I cannot verify the
truth of that.

We had earlier as part of our current endeavor sought to
offer something in the way of a comparative programming
language metric. In my view this proposed approach to
interpreter implementation and the different linguistic
perspectives for at least the "basic" three offer the most
comprehensive means of doing this.

I think it important that we utilize the same approach for PM
and logic programming. That means developing a perspective
unique to each relative to solving common problems. Maybe in
so doing I can do what I have failed to do thus far, gain a
perspective on some of the fundamental differences between
imperative and declarative languages.

I would appreciate some feedback on this.

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