ann: Book of Shen 5th edition

[dr.mt...@gmail.com]

This is now available on the Great British Bookshop.  Note GBB print and distribute from the UK,  USA, Canada and Australia now.

Since the publication of the 4th edition in 2021, the printing and distribution has gone through something of a revolution at my publishers.  The old method of sending off pdf to an agent has ended.  The pdf is kept in a virtual vault accessed directly by the author.  This means that corrections and minor updates can be handled from my desktop.  This effectively means that the 5th edition will also be the canonical and final edition.  This new technology is the main reason for issuing the new edition.

If you've bought the 4th edition, then you know that this edition brought in the new S kernel, so this was a significant jump.  The revisions to the 4th edition are mainly minor and your text is not greatly out of date.  The changes are as follows:

1.   The algorithm for factorising code introduced in version 37 replaces the old version

       in the 4th edition.

2.   The chapter on typed Shen-YACC is revised to incorporate the simplification introduced  in version 35.

3.   A section on assert and retract in Shen Prolog is added; reflecting changes       introduced in versions 34.5 and 36.

4.   The list of system functions is revised to accomodate some changes post Shen/tk.

I'm looking at electronic options too and I'll be talking to support.

Mark

[alpha...@orange.fr]

Hello Shen-ers,

 

I just bought the 4th edition + the Logic Proof and Computation book.

I am sure you are curious about what Shen is used for and what Shen is planned for.

So i will tell my use case. 

 

I don't currently use Shen. Yet i have bought the book because sequent calculus may become one of my daily tool.  

I currently use OCaml to implement Les Accepteurs : Un nouveau modèle de programmation.

Although the language has static and dynamic semantic specified using sequent calculus i don't yet feel the urge to switch to Shen. I am fluent enough in OCaml and the specified semantics are fairly intuitive enough.

 

Where things become more complicated is the language has dynamic typing and i feel a static typing is hightly desirable for both performance, debugging, specification power and so on.

In the end you can't escape sequent calculus forever.

Not long ago i would have sweared OCaml is my last language.

Today i fell Shen is my next.

 

Sequent calculus is not for me, it's for language designers.

Until i eventually become a language designer.

I am certain plenty of OCaml & Haskell users will soon discover they are (domain-specific) language designers too and will plan a switch to Shen. It's a question of time, you have to be patient, seems to me Shen is the future of functionnal programming.

 

- damien

[dr.mt...@gmail.com]

Your remarks are very much appreciated.  A close friend said something similar

about my work - adding You'll be appreciated after you're dead.  I found this dryly

amusing, and was not at all put out.   Some of my favourite people have fallen into

this category - Charles Sanders Peirce for instance.    He was far ahead of his time

but died in poverty.  His work now rests under a glass case in Harvard.

Happily after drugs my health is improving and I am no longer in poverty.   I am 

publishing a lot of undocumented work during this year.  I hope to make this work

easily available electronically.

I do hope your copy of LPC is the third edition which is superior.  The second edition

should really be removed from print.  I'll check on this, but old copies will circulate.

Welcome to the news group btw.

Mark 

[alpha...@orange.fr]

Unfortunately i bought my LPC at Amazon France which only sells the 2nd edition
Logic, Proof and Computation second edition

- damien

[dr.mt...@gmail.com]

Well, pretty soon all my work will be readable online, so you won't lose out

too much.

M.