Re: Jeff's new programming language

[Jeff Kingston]

On Sun, 7 Apr 2002 11:51:53 +0200 (MET DST), Oliver Bandel wrote:
  > 
  > Sounds interesting.
  > 
  > When will you publish the language?  (GPL? (Maintainer J.K.))

When it's implemented.  It will be GPL licenced as usual.

  > Dis you start with that project or do you have a date, when
  > you start?

August, after I resign from here.

  > I think the new project is the reason, why you
  > don't want to put so much effort into lout now.

Not really.  I have no time for research of any kind at the moment.

  > and when will be the new typesetting syste available?

When it's implemented.

  > (Do you have names for both?)

I've chosen the name Nonpareil.

  > 
  > Ciao,
  >    Oliver
  > 
  > P.S.: What is it good for to cache a function call?
  >       is this for speed-up? Or why do you want to
  >       cache? What informations are stored in the cache,
  >       and what advantages does this have (for the language
  >       and for the programmer)?

For speed.  The cache is a symbol table whose key is the sequence
of parameters of the function call and whose value is the result
of the function call.  It is totally transparent to the user
except for the faster speed.  Caching is particularly relevant
to document formatting because of the large amount of similar
stuff that gets computed, particularly when optimizing layouts.

Jeff