[OT] Eternal programming

[Roman Suzi]

Hello,

Latest Guido's decisions about xrange, / vs. div, etc, gave an interesting
idea which, probably, will find some followers.

The idea is to create Eternal programming style (or language -
I am not sure).

Let me explain.

I want to be 100% sure that some things I use today will stay forever.
My main concerns are:

- archivators/compressors
- picture-showing utilities
- format converters
- file-system recognizers
-

The Eternal language must have the following features:

1. Small set of well-defined features and operations:
   - basic integer operations
   - basic string operations
   - way to extend language dictionary to allow even
   syntactical changes
   - basic IO capabilities. I mean really basic:
   1 input and 1 output stream of bytes.

2. Universal set of algorithmic constructions:
   if, while, for (like in Python or dumbed down)

3. Small set of libraries, written entirely in Eternal

4. There is only ONE fully described way of how core Eternal
   should function. All extensions only thru libraries
   which must be 7-bit clean (and thus Unicode too)

Eternal programs must remain Eternal as long as humanity use latin aphabet
(26 digits), 0-9 digits, ".", ",", spaces. All other characters must be
defined thru special macros.

The main feature of Eternal is:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. the interpreter of the language must be buildable from 2-page specs by
any programmer in (nearly) any language and platform in reasonable time
(0.5-8 hours, depending on the proficiency).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then extension libraries could be applied to the core and we get complete
language. Every program must be distributed with source, libraries and a
spec to build Eternal so, anyone could run them after building
interpreter. It doesn't matter how large libraries are used as long as
they are written in pure Eternal. NO "downloadable" modules and such.
Every Eternal program is monolithic and if it is not functional, it is not
eternal.

The main concern of the Eternal to be usable by any computers which could
do simple things like arithmetics, put strings together, store data and
such.
------------------------------------------------------------------

6. Eternal specs, interpreter and base library must be in Public Domain.

7. There will be only ONE TRUE ORIGINAL core Eternal Spec, no enhancements
ever. And I would like the Spec to be on the stone of my tomb..!

The closest of all to described as Eternal is... Forth. I even think, that
some well-defined minimal subset of Forth will do.

This way, Eternal programs could _look_ as whatever language as long as
they use nothing but pure Eternal. Otherwise, as you can guess, your
program are no more eternal ;-)

And I think Eternal will be really easy to write in Python ;-)

Gee... This doc is probably suitable for humour page and it's
author for psychiatric clinic ;-)

But I really-really frustrated keep up-to-date with things which need
eternity...

Self-appointed Eternal BDFL&D,
Roman Suzi
-- 
_/ Russia _/ Karelia _/ Petrozavodsk _/ rnd at onego.ru _/
_/ Saturday, July 07, 2001 _/ Powered by Linux RedHat 6.2 _/
_/ "OK, I'm weird! But I'm saving up to become eccentric." _/