alpha-3: casting to string

But quality of work can be expected only through personal satisfaction, dedication and enjoyment. In our profession, precision and perfection are not a dispensible luxury, but a simple necessity.

-Niklaus Wirth
 
You may know that in alpha-1 and 2 you can use the str subroutine to cast from an integer to a string. For example:

?number =~ "PI = ";
number = 3,141592654;
!out(~number, ~!str(number));

Output:

PI = 3,141592654

In alpha-3 str also accepts a 3th, optional argument. Notice that the above example would produce the following output in alpha-3:

PI = 3

This 3th argument is the decimal precision, and it's default value is 0. The following:

?number =~ "PI = ";
number = 3,141592654;
!out(~number, ~!str(number, 10));

 Will thus produce:

PI = 3,1415926540

15 reasons why I prefer gedit

IDE features are language smells.

-Reg Braithwaite

I do not use any IDE, I just use gedit. Simply because gedit offers me what an IDE offers me. In this post, I'll be telling you 15 reasons why I prefer gedit above an IDE or another text editor.

The current state on alpha-3

And, you know, the fact is, if you believe in evolution, we all have a common ancestor, and we all have a common ancestry with the plant in the lobby. This is what evolution tells us. And, it's true. It's kind of unbelievable.

Jeff Hawkins

This is just a short update on alpha-3, to show that I'm still working on TBS(I didn't post much because of that, in fact).
The last days I have been reorganizing the structure of TBS. I have, and probably will still, encountered some bugs but luckily I succeeded in fixing all of them. This means that I can now continue with restructuring the code. I also added the ability to provide less arguments than needed(see last post) and I added the first feature of the environment subroutine: OS checking.

alpha-3: new features

I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.

Isaac Asimov
  
Obviously, alpha-3 will offer some new and interesting features. The goal of this post is the list the features that I currently have implemented or am planning to implement.

C/C++: Creating an alternative syntax

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.

Albert Einstein

Today, for the first time, I will be posting about something not related to TBS. I'll be showing you how to use macros in C or C++ to create an alternative syntax. This can be fun if you like inventing new syntaxes but you don't want to write a complex compiler or interpreter.

pseudo objects in alpha-3

Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California.

Edsger Dijkstra

Today, I realized that some of the new features that alpha-3 offers I would be able to create some sort of objects. Note that I did not intentionally add any support for OOP. I like to call this sort of objects pseudo objects and the classes that define them pseudo classes. Why? Because you can't really call them real objects.

Tutorial 1: Hello, world!

Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler.

Albert Einstein


In this first tutorial I will be showing you how to write a simple Hello, world! program. You probably won't find this hard, certainly if you already now another programming language.

alpha-2: release + tutorials

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.

-Albert Einstein

Two things this time: the alpha-2 release and a new page!

Graphical possibilities?

"The days when you needed amazing Silicon Graphics machines to run animation software are gone now."

-Dave Rowntree

 The aim of TBS is not to draw nice windows on your monitor, yet I might add graphics possibilities. I would start by adding the ability to show simple message and input boxes in alpha-3 and later I would start by adding the ability to draw more complex windows with menus buttons, shapes and possibly images. Please note that this isn't certain at all.
In other news: you can expect alpha-2 to be released this week.

Adding system commands

Change brings opportunity.

-Nido Qubein

Yesterday, I received an interesting question from rambler on this blog. He asked if TBS supports system calls. I had to answer no, because I forgot to add them...

Problems with alpha-1

"Errare humanum est."

-Some Roman

It seems that there is a problem for some people with the Debian package that should install TBS. For those people, I would propose the following(very simple) alternative solution:
First of all, download this file.
Then go to /usr/bin/ as root(sudo nautilus for ubuntu).
And finally, simply move the files tbs-STDL and tbs to there.
You should be able to use tbs normally now.

TBS alpha-2: errors?

Ominium rerum principia parva sunt.

 -Marcus Tullius Cicero

In the next version of TBS, error reporting will be improved. In addition to that, you will also be able to disable all error reporting.

Hello World!

Anybody who comes to you and says he has a perfect language is either naive or a salesman.

-Bjarne Strousrup


This is my first post(as you probably already noticed). This blog will be mainly about TBS(To Be Simple), a programming language I created. Please do not expect it to be a language even comparable to most programming languages out there today. But TBS has a number of features which are interesting and it has a purpose.
Besides that, I will also write about other things related to computer-science.
The current download for TBS(debian package): http://www.mediafire.com/?7hdbhs6g0oty86k.
For a language summary, look in /usr/bin/tbs-doc/summary.pdf or here.

A windows binary will be created later(and I will add some more information tomorrow?).
Well, I guess that's all... for now.