Aucbvax.5232
fa.works
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!works
Tue Nov 17 22:33:22 1981
WorkS Digest V1 #38
>From JSol@RUTGERS Tue Nov 17 22:26:42 1981
WorkS Digest Wednesday, 18 Nov 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 38
Today's Topics: Exxon's Answer To The Star
Programming Environments - Operating System Vs. User Interface
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Date: 17 November 1981 17:25-EST
From: Steven T. Kirsch <SK MIT-MC AT>
Subject: Exxon
Xonex [which is Exxon spelled sideways] is the Exxon company that is
building Exxon's answer to Star; it has a full bitmap and other nice
features that I am not allowed to disclose. However, the system is
very special case (i.e., like Wang) and concepts such as
"extensibility and customizability" seem to be foreign to the people
there. The software is impressive, but last I saw, they were still
coding in a macro assember.
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Date: 17 November 1981 17:41-EST
From: Stavros M. Macrakis <MACRAK MIT-MC AT>
Subject: WorkS Digest V1 #35: Programming environments
To: BillW at SRI-KL
A programming environment supports development of programs. Examples
are Harvard PDS, CMU Gandalf, PWB/Unix (shell and utilities).
An operating system supports running of programs and storage of data
(including, presumably, the programs which implement the programming
environment). Examples are Tops-20, Unix.
A programming system supports cooperation of running programs. In
most places, this consists of a set of conventions. In Unix, for
instance, it consists of conventions on the use of pipes and the
passage of textual parameters. Examples are the conventions of
Multics, Tops-10 (CCL files!).
A general user interface (there appears to be no standard name for
this and moreover it is often incorporated into the OS itself)
supports user control of the running of programs. Examples are
Tops-20 Exec, Unix Shell, DDT/Hactrn. Note that the Tops-10 "monitor"
is both an operating system and an interface.
The above classification is not to imply that the distinctions are
always sharp, nor that the best organization separates the levels.
Some very successful systems (Lisp Machine, for instance) blur many of
the lines; more and more other lines, such as those between
programming language, system, and environment, are similarly blurred.
There is a large literature on the first two topics. The third and
fourth topics are less discussed in themselves, although instances are
sometimes reported in the literature.
In all of these areas, there are debates about the right way to do
things. Some typical dimensions of dispute are the degree to which a
PE "understands" what it is working on (in PWB/Unix, not at all: it is
just a string of characters to most tools; while in Gandalf and PDS it
is structured and cannot be dealt with as a string of characters); the
degree of integration of parts of the system (again, in Unix almost
none--the toolbox approach; in PDS, very great); the amount of
structure in interfaces in PS's (in Unix, arguments are just strings
which may be interpreted as desired; in Multics, they are PL/I
objects); ... etc. etc. ad infinitum.
In any case, there is an extensive literature especially on
programming environments. See Horst Huenke's (some libraries may
transcribe u umlaut as 'u', giving Hunke) recent collection for a
starting point.
Stavros Macrakis
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End of WorkS Digest
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