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isetl developments and updates
Hi, so you know: I goofed on the web page addr, and I made corrections
that allow you to go to the place I already said, and in addition, to
go to a corrected address. That address is:
http://www.debian.org/~jwl/
and Jan Hlavacek <lahvak@math.ohio-state.edu> has provided links to isetl
documentation files. I have incorporated those into the web page. Thanks
Jan; good work :) I'm learning setl now :) (I knew NOTHING of it before I
began porting it, and once I got it sort of working (its current state),
it was a few days before I had the docs and could actually start learning it.)
OK, in other news, I have tried my build of isetl, having become familiar
a bit with the language. EVERYTHING I tried works fine! The only problem
is the interface, which just looks wrong. Works good, looks bad.
I get the feeling that isetl might be able to draw pictures; I am
currently considering that a wild unsubstantiated rumor :) So, isetl
as I have built it is text-only.
> Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 00:16:35 EDT
> To: seul-edu@seul.org
> From: Jan Hlavacek <lahvak@math.ohio-state.edu>
> Subject: Re: gperiodic-1.1.1 packaged, now working on isetl
>
> > Now, on to isetl:
> >
> > I noticed isetl in "existing software", however there is no linux port.
> > Well, I just ported it. It's working basically, except I don't know setl!
> > Anyone know it?
>
> Unfortunately, at this moment I don't have an access to a linux machine
> (actually, I have one, using it right now, but it is extremely small, no
> space for even a compiler, not to speak about X11). In a few weeks, I am
> going to move, and hopefully after that I'll have an oportunity to give
> isetl a spin.
What platform? what version of libc and libncurses? MAYBE I can build it
for you; not sure now.
> Do you have some more detailed list of changes you did? Eventually,
> your linux version should be coordinated with other versions. I have
> the address of the person responsible for the windoze version somewhere,
> maybe we can contact them.
I can offer you a unified diff... but nothing annotated at the moment.
The original problem was it kept segfaulting in the function cbreak(),
a libcurses command that changes how keyboard input works. I added
code to initialize curses and code to undo the effect of initializing
curses for when the user wants out of isetl.
I was also very interested in making isetl rock solid, and having the
compiler help me do that. I noticed that improvement in this area was
possible when I noticed that all the function definitions did not tell
the compiler the types of arguments, so I altered a lot of them so that
they would. Doing so would ensure that argument data is lined up properly
so that the function would look in the exact right places on the stack
for it.
Third, I noticed the parser was not getting built correctly because the
data type for items of the syntax stack defaulted to the wrong type.
The parser is built using a special tool which takes a language grammar
and other information and automatically generates a parser that can
understand and break down passages written in that language. I saw to
it that the parser can always be built from the grammar description,
that "make clean" would get rid of the parser that was generated, and
that the syntax stack items would be the right data type.
YES, let's contact them, but remember, while the interpreter IS
working, it's not ready for much more than an evaluation.
Ya know, I don't see any activity in "Calculus, Computers, and
Cooperative Learning" (aka C4L) for the past 2 years, nor do I see
anything current they're doing with isetl. They offer it, but that's
about it. Is anyone aware of any activity in C4L or anyone else using
setl in education?
I expected to find MUCH more material, but as far as I can see from
the web pages, either C4L and isetl interest has gone to -273.1 deg C
(i.e., absolute zero) or else the thought of their updating their web
pages is like getting their teeth pulled slowly without novacaine...
To me, it was disheartening to see what amounted to a total lack of
interest. I hope I'm wrong about this... isetl looks promising.
The last time they did a teacher seminar was in 1997, as far as I can tell.
So let's ask them for updated information on the C4L project, and suggest
they update their web pages. And let's let them know that isetl is close
to being ready for linux.
> > Platforms I tested my version on: debian slink i386, debian potato
> > i386, sparc, dec alpha. All perform similarly, but some show more
> > compiler warnings than others; I'll clean those up soon.
>
> As I said, I don't have a linux with a compiler right now, but I could
> give it a try on solaris. I'll let you know how it works.
I'm not sure my stuff will compile on solaris... On the other hand,
I'm also not sure the curses stuff won't be better either. If that's
the case, it means the curses libraries are somewhat different. As far
as I can see, curses support just wasn't completed.
In any case, this test build is definitely for linux; I may have done
some things in the code to break portability with other platforms. I
plan to run thru it again, this time encapsulating my changes into
#ifdef linux .... #endif directives.
The sparc referred to above is running debian (as are all the platforms I
tested on).
> I don't have a man page, never seen one, but I do have some html doc
> available at http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/%7Elahvak/software/isetl/ .
> I don't remember where I got them, probably the oficial isetl site.
> Now when I think about it, they probably are not even in html, just
> plain ASCII.
I have downloaded this documentation, and it now sits at the (corrected)
link, below. along with everything else (pgp key, packages-in-progress).
> > I'm gonna package it soon...
> >
> > I'll put the -source- (unpack it, cd in there, make clean, make gcc) at:
> >
> > http://www.debian.org/~jwl/isetl/
>
> Doesn't seem to be there yet. I'll try tomorrow.
the stuff is there, but most people would find it easier to just chase
this link:
http://www.debian.org/~jwl/
-Jim
---
Jim Lynch Finger for pgp key
as Laney College CIS admin: jim@laney.edu http://www.laney.edu/~jim/
as Debian developer: jwl@debian.org http://www.debian.org/~jwl/