January meeting

[Matt Youell]

My calendar (which would never, ever lie to me) says the January
meeting is Thursday the 22nd. Is that right, and are we back at the
OTBC or elsewhere?

[Steve Morris]

> My calendar (which would never, ever lie to me) says the January

> meeting is Thursday the 22nd. Is that right, and are we back at the
> OTBC or elsewhere?

OTBC is available if you'd like to meet here.

[Phil Tomson]

Yes, let's meet on Thursday the 22nd.

Can we get Wm to talk about Bertrand?

Phil

[Ragav Satish]

And Phil how about a short talk on Ant Colony Optimization? or perhaps
RHDL?

Of course I might be the only one interested in this ..

--Cheers
--Ragav

[Phil Tomson]

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 6:11 PM, Ragav Satish <ragav...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> And Phil how about a short talk on Ant Colony Optimization? or perhaps
> RHDL?
>
> Of course I might be the only one interested in this ..
>
> --Cheers
> --Ragav

...well, maybe. I haven't looked at RHDL in about a year, though.

Phil

[Igal Koshevoy]

Phil Tomson wrote:
> Yes, let's meet on Thursday the 22nd.
>
> Can we get Wm to talk about Bertrand?

There's a mailing list for discussing Bertrand at:
http://groups.google.com/group/bertrand-constraint

Wm's made a number of changes recently to the code, so you should use
his ZIP rather than my now-outdated Git repository.

/me adds Wm to TO: of message in hopes of getting his attention

-igal

[wm]

> /me adds Wm to TO: of message in hopes of getting his attention

Attention gotten.

Have added some new examples to Bertrand, plus updated the
documentation.

I'm really looking for someone(s) who want to do some real work with
Bertrand, like adding array/streams/iterators to it. Or adding a
graphical user interface.

--wm

[Phil Tomson]

What about Bertrand as an embedded DSL within another language like
OCaml or Haskell? then you'd get those things pretty much for free.

You can add syntax to OCaml, for example, using campl4 (Caml's
pre-processor that lets you manipulate the AST for a program and add
syntax). That might be an interesting way to go.

Phil

[wm]

Are you volunteering?

[Phil Tomson]

Could be a fun project. Perhaps even a group project?

Phil

[wm]

I would certainly be involved, if others will jump in too.

[Phil Tomson]

I've been looking for an excuse to play with camlp4. Let me look at
Bertrand a bit more (I just took a quick glance at it a month or so
ago when Igal posted the code) and see what it would take. From what
you said in the Nov meeting there isn't much syntax to Bertrand.

Phil

[Wm Leler]

There is almost no syntax to Bertrand, just rules, types, and operators.
Only seven reserved characters in Bertrand, which are { } . # " ' `
Extremely simple semantics, too.

I don't know camlp4. Do you have a pointer to a good quick introduction?

It would be very good to embed Bertrand in some other language, but it
would need to be the right language.

--wm

[Phil Tomson]

On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 4:56 PM, Wm Leler <wml...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> There is almost no syntax to Bertrand, just rules, types, and operators.
> Only seven reserved characters in Bertrand, which are { } . # " ' `
> Extremely simple semantics, too.
>
> I don't know camlp4. Do you have a pointer to a good quick introduction?

There's a wiki here:
http://brion.inria.fr/gallium/index.php/Camlp4

There's a new blog about it here:
http://ambassadortothecomputers.blogspot.com/

Here's an example where they wrote a camlp4 syntax extension that
generates converters between OCaml and JSON:
http://martin.jambon.free.fr/json-static.html

>
> It would be very good to embed Bertrand in some other language, but it
> would need to be the right language.

What do you think would be the characteristics of the 'right' language?

Phil

[Wm Leler]

>> It would be very good to embed Bertrand in some other language, but
>> it
>> would need to be the right language.
>
> What do you think would be the characteristics of the 'right'
> language?
>
> Phil

Off the top of my head:

1) It should be very good at manipulating tree structures efficiently.
Most of what Bertrand does is match a pattern expression against a
subject expression, and replace it with a body expression. Over and
over again.

2) It should be able to define new functions at run-time and evaluate
them.

3) It would be nice if it could deal with infix notation expressions.

4) It should have some built-in graphics.

5) It should run on lots of platforms, and be widely available.

I'm sure there are other things too.

--wm

[Igal Koshevoy]

Phil Tomson wrote:
> I've been looking for an excuse to play with camlp4. Let me look at
> Bertrand a bit more (I just took a quick glance at it a month or so
> ago when Igal posted the code) and see what it would take. From what
> you said in the Nov meeting there isn't much syntax to Bertrand.

May I suggest the idea of crossover meetings?

Present Bertrand at WestsideProggers on Jan 22nd, and then spend a night
demoing/hacking on OCaml integration at pdxfunc on Feb 9th?

-igal

[Phil Tomson]

On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 5:38 PM, Wm Leler <wml...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>
>> What do you think would be the characteristics of the 'right'
>> language?
>>
>> Phil
>
> Off the top of my head:
>
> 1) It should be very good at manipulating tree structures efficiently.
> Most of what Bertrand does is match a pattern expression against a
> subject expression, and replace it with a body expression. Over and
> over again.

Both Haskell and OCaml are great for tree manipulation.

>
> 2) It should be able to define new functions at run-time and evaluate
> them.
>

...that's a bit tougher. Neither is a very dynamic language. Could
you generate expression trees that then get evaluated within a
context?

> 3) It would be nice if it could deal with infix notation expressions.
>

Should work.

> 4) It should have some built-in graphics.
>

They've each got bindings to graphics libs.

> 5) It should run on lots of platforms, and be widely available.

All the important platforms are covered (not sure about Windows, though ;-)

Phil

[wm]

I'm moving the discussion of Bertrand and Camlp4 over to the bertrand-
constraint group, since it seems more appropriate there.

Go to

http://groups.google.com/group/bertrand-constraint/browse_thread/thread/853822000dd02373

[Richard Fobes]

Regarding the upcoming meeting, is there any interest in having me
explain a coding language I created? (I made this offer here in a
previous thread and didn't get a reply.)

The language, which I have not yet named because this is the first
written reference to it, might be useful in conjunction with
Bertrand. Or it might not. To some extent it overlaps with Bertrand
because it involves successive replacements. Yet it also implements
lists.

The language has possibly less syntax than Bertrand. It basically
implements recursive text replacement with the ability to create lists
and text-based parameters. It is text-manipulation oriented rather
than numerically oriented, yet it can generate any kind of text,
including executable code.

I use it in conjunction with Perl code to dynamically generate web
pages (in HTML) at VoteFair.org and NegotiationTool.com. (The
language is implemented by a few subroutines within that Perl code.)
Yet it could be used in many different applications. It's also
intended to take a step forward toward a coding language that can be
spoken, which could be useful in the mobile world.

If there is interest, I would need advice on how to make it available
on an open-source basis.

I don't want to squeeze out anything on the meeting's upcoming agenda,
but inasmuch as it could be useful in conjunction with Bertrand, I
think it's worth explaining briefly.

[Eric Wilhelm]

# from Richard Fobes
# on Sunday 11 January 2009 19:03:

>If there is interest, I would need advice on how to make it available
>on an open-source basis.

I know a thing or two about the CPAN ;-)

It sounds like an interesting language.

--Eric
--
[...proprietary software is better than gpl because...] "There is value
in having somebody you can write checks to, and they fix bugs."
--Mike McNamara (president of a commercial software company)
---------------------------------------------------
http://scratchcomputing.com
---------------------------------------------------

[Wm Leler]

I'd be interested in hearing about this language. --wm

[Richard Fobes]

On Jan 12, 1:20 am, Eric Wilhelm <scratchcomput...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I know a thing or two about the CPAN ;-)

Wow! I looked up your name and discovered that you are indeed an
expert in the Perl/CPAN world. I look forward to talking with you
about the possibilities. We can discuss this directly if you either
call me at 503-246-5067 or email me at pr...@SolutionsCreative.com.
(On Twitter I'm CPsolver.) Otherwise we can talk at the meeting.

Based on the interest indicated by Eric and Wm, at the meeting I'll
briefly explain the language and share examples. I think it deserves
to be available within Perl (because I wouldn't have had to write it
if it had already existed). Yet it also has powerful characteristics
that would be useful in combination with other languages, including
Bertrand.

Richard Fobes