[Pipet Devel] paradigm

[Brad Chapman]

> "o.t" wrote:
>> There is little technical information on your web site.

Just curious, what kind of information would you like to see?

> o.t. wrote:
>> Are you creating a visual programming language (VPL)? If so then 
what
>> paradigm will it use? Or are you creating a framework in which 
different
>> VPLs can be plugged in?

Jeff wrote:
> Piper started out (as Loci) as a framework to connect APPLICATIONS 
across the
> Internet.  It just so happened that we found a VPL being developed 
that uses
> a very similar paradigm, only it is not Internet-distributed.  That 
VPL (I
> guess you can call it that) is Overflow, by Jean-Marc Valin and 
> Dominic Letourneau:

>From my talking with Jean-Marc, the major goal of the visual part of 
Overflow was to make the programs he wrote using his libraries more 
readible and understandable (people on the list saw his screenshots 
and how crazy things can get). Although it has some elements of a 
programming language (since it is loosely modeled after it) I 
definately do not think a major goal was developing a full featured 
VPL. This is probably why you do not see links to specific design 
choices for this.

o.t. wrote:
>> Or are you creating a framework in which different
>> VPLs can be plugged in?

This is certainly possible, if someone is really interested in working 
on it. As Jeff mentioned Overflow already has some elements of a 
programming languages (with constructs like 'and', 'multiplexers', 
etc.), so it should be something feasible.

o.t. wrote:
>> Maybe you can put pointers to papers that you use in your project on
>> your web site.

At least from my side, I am more of a "self-taught" programmer, than 
an "academic" programmer, so I am not very likely to do much reading 
of papers (well, not computer science papers--but I do have huge piles 
of biologically related papers in a mass surrounding my desk :-). But 
I am also very interested in hearing about any ideas you could suggest 
about things we could read that would help us in our coding, and am 
very open to suggestions.

    Thanks for writing.

Brad