Topic: abstraction

Quote: the central idea of Thesa is abstraction, i.e., the ability to refer to anything by name [»cbb_1973, OK]

Quote: a natural language for very large numbers [»cbb_1990, OK]

Quote: have ten orders of magnitude between program execution in hours and instruction execution in a microsecond; must have intermediate levels [»dijkEW10_1972]

Quote: the distinction between application and system is arbitrary in Cedar [»swinDC7_1985]

Quote: Thesa provides an environment where a name is understood in separate languages; computational/numbers and recognition/words [»cbb_1980, OK]

Quote: naming provides a pidgin language for design and a file system for data storage [»cbb_1990, OK]

Note: a modern programming language is really a large language and a large API; Thesa separates the language from everything else [»cbb_1990, OK]

Note: natural IDS -- 64-bit DepotID, world-wide unique with owner; 64-bit ItemID, unique within DepotID; formats with language codes [»cbb_2000, OK]

Note: a version of a depot is at a location, undergoing a sequence of revisions; a local ID exists at a location [»cbb_2000, OK]

Group: goals for a programming system The main goals of a programming system are efficiency, simplicity, and reliability.

Topic: non-constraining system

Topic: design for change

Topic: incremental development

Topic: open systems

Topic: error safe systems

Topic: software portability

Topic: reusable programming

Topic: resourceful, redundant systems for reliability The key idea in Thesa is incremental programming. Everything is incremental: database, development, testing, specification, implementation, code generation, and grammar.

Quote: flexibility is a fundamental consideration of language design; it should be planned for from the start [»halpMI1_1968]

Quote: it is often easier to replicate software than to integrate it into a new system [»winoT7_1979]

Quote: common subroutines from bottom-up design are reused; those from top-down design are for optimization [»jackMA_1975]

Quote: program in Forth by writing small pieces which are readily tested [»bailGV8_1977]

Quote: exploratory development environments provide rapid turnaround for building large applications by iterative evolution [»goldA_1986]

Topic: extensible languages

Topic: language flexibility

Quote: goal of extensible languages was to extend a base language into a natural representation for data, operations, and control of an application

Quote: language extensibility is the graceful enhancement of a base language; unlike compilation's extreme transformation [»elsoM_1973]

Quote: full extensibility is impossible because there is nothing to build on [»browPJ_1974]

Quote: PPL failed as an extensible language because the base language was preserved in the extensions [»stanTA12_1971]

Quote: lesson of extensible languages: no simple statement to an unknowledgeable computer can alter its behavior in major ways [»stanTA12_1971]

Quote: an orthogonal extension to a language normally requires surgery on its underlying guts [»stanTA6_1975]

Quote: users need a large amount of effort and knowledge to extend a language significantly [»stanTA12_1971]

Quote: original goal for ML was a natural-like language for all computer interaction [»spooCR4_1986]

Quote: the true contraction of reference is machine code; a language should be an expansion of reference; unlike VHLLs [»cbb_1980, OK]

Topic: words defined by words

Quote: a word is in a language if, through that language, we can understand the word [»cbb_1973, OK]

QuoteRef: cbb_1973 ;;4/18/76 Bob Boeri: define the language in terms of itself, like a dictionary

QuoteRef: cbb_1973 ;;3/7/79 Purna is not based on reduction. There is no meaning attached to a sequence other than the sequence itself.

QuoteRef: hehnEC7_1975 ;;28 writes example programs very much like language programs [MERLIN]

Topic: efficiency Thesa shares FORTRAN's emphasis on production programming in cost-conscious environments. Thesa systems provide local resource efficiency, efficient procedure representation and an efficient user interface, while the user organizes his programs for global efficiency. Instead of providing a general purpose machine, Thesa provides the user a database particularly tuned to his needs. (cbb 5/80)

Quote: flexibility and efficiency are fundamentally in conflict

Topic: understanding systems

Topic: localized understanding

Topic: spatial vs. temporal representation

Topic: uniform language systems

Quote: a stable pidgin uses phrase-like formulas for the description of new concepts, e.g., 'smoke eat thing' for 'pipe' [»sebbM_1997]

Quote: understanding: there are many ways to say or do something, but all are the same [»browGS_1972]

Quote: novice users are surprised at the effort needed to get a program to work [»instrumentcontrol]

Quote: a complete language does not depend on other languages for its semantics [»backJ_1973, OK]

Quote: a language should be designed around a single, uniform metaphor [»ingaDH8_1981a]

Quote: a system should be built with a minimum set of unchangeable, generalized parts in a uniform framework [»ingaDH8_1981a]

Quote: ZOG integrates a system by imposing a single, uniform data model: frames [»akscRM5_1984]

Quote: keyword search is not precise and programming languages do not communicate

Note: Thesa's programming language is its numeric opcodes; a machine language for high-level languages [»cbb_1990, OK]

Note: Thesa is a high-level representation of assembly language code [»cbb_1990, OK]

Note: opcodes define a language; a portability layer [»cbb_1990, OK]

Note: define conditional statements from conditional gotos using a Branch argument [»cbb_2000, OK]

Note: a branch parameter is a code offset into an activation record [»cbb_2000, OK]

Quote: presenting Echokey took too much time without getting users; maybe sell it inexpensively to end users [»cbb_1980, OK]

Note: initial conversion of Thesa's editor to Windows [»cbb_1990, OK]