Hi Dennis,

Thanks for trying to answer my questions, but we are now so far removed from my motivations for wanting to help you with your project that I simply must end it here for the time being.

Let me be very clear that my interest in your project has always, and only, been to help and encourage someone who wants to learn. In order to try to better help I have tried to understand your claims for your language, that it is somehow "revolutionary" and "more powerful than java" and numerous others.

To that end I had suggested that you try to explain the core concepts on which your language is based, what makes it revolutionary and sets it apart from others.

After spending much time (hours) reviewing previous posts and the tutorial and other documentation you have uploaded here, I still find no clear answer that says, "Here is my core revolutionary idea in a nutshell...". In the code posted in previous threads, and in the documentation you have uploaded here, I see no basis for claims of anything other than the type of simple virtual machine written by eager computer science students.

In my most recent post I again requested that concept as my first, most important item:

And the answer was, again...

To continue with my own attempt at clarity, I simply have no interest in learning your language for any other purpose than to try to better help you understand established compiler concepts and methods. Without any identifiable distinguishing foundation principle for it, I no longer have even curiosity about it, sorry to say. So I think I have provided all the help I can at this point.

As for the licensing, I read only enough to know that although it uses the word 'freedom", it is far from a free software license by any common measure. I had hoped it might be GPL or BSD or similar, but it is unique. I do not install any software that requires that I try to understand a license because I am not a lawyer and my best understanding would be pointless in any legal frame of reference. So I rely on the common acceptance of licenses such as GPL, BSD, Apache, etc., and reject all others, and I must reject yours on that same basis. Your license has protected you in the sense that I did not download the code.

Again, I simply am not interested enough to try to digest the license, build and debug the code written for another platform, install required libraries, manually look up opcodes and try to run the example program for a language which has not a single clear purpose for me. That is far outside the scope of my participation in your threads and this blog.

On a side comment, I would strongly encourage you to adopt a well known free software license and business model. In particular, if you are going rely on the help of freely given advice and assistance, it simply is not equitable (and would be considered a bit under-handed by many) to then release the result as proprietary code. You should consider that.

I mean all of this in the most helpful way and hope that you will consider it and not take offense. I am not criticising your work, I am saying that of itself your language has no particular interest for me. My interest was always to help you learn, I hope that even this is helpful toward that end.

Anyway, I wish you the best, but I cannot go further down this particular path.

Robert

Well I must say it is more than just a little disappointing to come all this way and find... nothing.

With all the urgings to write code in your special language, and having put forth some honest effort to try to understand the basis of your claims for it, then to find that there is not even a simple interpreter available for it is very unsatisfying, to say the least.

And then to hear that when it is released it will be binary only is a show-stopper for myself. Right at this moment I think I have little or no interest in pursuing it further, at least until I see...

1. The distinguishing, compelling concept which sets this language apart from xyz-p-code, explained in 25 words or less.
2. The Des_a license mentioned in your posted files, not a place-holder.
3. The working source code for the interpreter, binary is a non-starter for me.
4. A copy/paste working example program which I can run immediately on that interpreter.

Anything else is really just words, and I think it is probably well past time to produce the meat of this matter.

I do not mean to discourage you, you obviously have put much effort into your project and have great hopes for it, but frankly you will need to show some very compelling reasons to re-kindle any interest on my behalf at this point. You have a perspective on your project which you have, so far, not communicated (to me) in any way that I can get a handle on. I hoped that when I could run a small program in that language I might understand the point of it. But, alas...

I wish you good luck with it, and remain happy to answer specific questions you may have, but I have no remaining interest in learning and debugging the opcode set of a simple VM which I cannot build and run.

Good luck!

Robert

I agree about owning all your books - never, ever, ever, discard a book that you learned from!

I have the opposite view of print media, however. I always obtain the print version of any book that I consider to be of value. Electronic versions can be a convenience, but when I study I want tactile contact and the information indexing that my brain does when I turn pages... I just don't get a suitable substitute from electonic books.

And of course the biggest consideration - durability! Electronic information is very transient by its nature. First of all, subject to loss due to hardware failure, huge potential for loss due to DRM, unsupported storage formats, unavailable reader applications... on and on...

When our ancestors passed on, their descendants could explore their attics and basements and listen to their music, read their books, look at their paintings or photos or sketches, read their letters and inherit and absorb the richness of their lives...

When this generation passes, it will be mostly into oblivion... they cannot listen to our music if it is not accessible, same for photos, books, letters... to a terrifying degree, we are leaving very little in our wake that is non-electronic and guaranteed to be accessible by our grand-kids. Well, most of us... mine will have a lot of reading to do if they are interested...

And just for my own use... I am not an actual collector, but I have a love of books and have acquired a few treasures along my own path. You mentioned your Bible. I have in my hand right now a very limited Cambridge Geneva Bible, 1591, 426 years ago. Absolutely readable with hand written notations by the original owner... Will there be ANYTHING of similar value and usefulness left by us, still useful 426 years from now?

I will refrain from much philosophizing, but in my own well considered opinion we have already entered what will become an increasingly dark period for knowledge, intelligence, understanding... a true dark age. That is in very large part due to the prevelance of device dependent, restricted access electronic media, remote strorage and DRM... the next generation already faces a bleak future as a result... just my opinion...

On the cheerful note, I must sign off! Buy printed books, read them and store them with care, they are more valuable than all the gold of avarice in the long run, to ourselves and to those who follow!

Robert

Hi Dennis!

I finally had time to read through your docs this evening.

For the first time I can see what your instruction set actually does - the internal virtual machine has definitely been a missing piece for as long as we have been communicating about your PNF language.

The description of that VM gives the much needed context for the instruction set and assemblers and compilers we have seen! You have written an instruction set which covers most of the basic math and logic operators for your VM, along with basic I/O. I am a little confused by the events however - I can see how you would trigger an event from the software, but I do not see how you catch system generated events (hardware events, hw/sw interrupts, kernel messages, etc.). Is that not yet implemented perhaps?

I worked all the way through the tutorial. Some questions/observations that come to mind, in no particular order of importance...

All opcodes, types and data are decimal numbers, is that right? So the registers in the VM must also be actual floating point registers...? What happens when a number with fractional part is entered for an op code or an address?

It also appears that every instruction required three numbers, opcode, type and data, even if the last two are VOID, is that right? For example, a POP from the stack is still "POP TVOID 0V", not simply POP.

I see the VM includes an instruction counter, but I am very unclear on the address register(s). I also saw a few times that the person writing the program must enter a target address for a branch (although labels are also suported). I suppose the assembler would handle that, but that is for another day.

And can the program allocate memory for its own use, similar to malloc or new operators?

Where would we get the interpreter/VM for running small programs? I seem to recall that it is only for window$ (which is a problem for myself - I have no access to that platform). Will it compile on Linux/Unix?

Anyway, thanks for the tour, that does put some focus on many things that have remained a bit mysterious when looking only at the "language" with not machine context.

Good luck!

Robert