----- Original Message -----

From: Henry Wong

To: snobol@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Friday, November 03, 2006 7:38 AM

Subject: Re: [snobol] Re: Snobol - Inspiration for Unix?

Hi, Jim.

I thought your name sounded familiar. I am Henry Wong and had graduated
City College in 1970. Spent some time at the CUNY Graduate Center in
the late 60's and early 70's. Was also a SNOBOL lover.

Henry

Jim Korenthal wrote:
> Rafal,
>
> I studied S4 in school in the early 70's and wrote a sizeable S4
> production system (RILM 5-year Index) when I worked for the CUNY
> Graduate Center in 1973. I agree with your comments about Fortran...
> in fact we thought of SPITBOL's I/O especially as particularly Fortran
> 4-influenced. As I remember it (sometimes the brain gets a little
> fuzzy, hehe), there was no talk about S4 influencing Unix in its
> formative years.
>
> Saving a slot: I mentioned in another message that I'm working on a
> text-based system for a marketing firm and that much of my prototyping
> is done in S4. It's worth noting that the production system is written
> in C# and makes heavy use of Regular Expressions. Prior to this system,
> I only used Regular Expressions for the simplest stuff because I could
> revert to S* when things got hairy. But in this case, S* wasn't a
> viable option so I bit the bullet and learned everything there was to
> know about Regexes and was actually impressed... you can cram a lot of
> parsing in relatively short statements, reminded me a bit of the
> pleasure of programming in APL. However, just like APL, when you look
> back at your program it's REAL hard to remember what you did. In fact,
> Regexes provide a special feature which allows you to split expressions
> across lines, ignoring spaces, and embedding comments in the middle of
> an expression. This at least gives you a S*'s chance in hell (p.i.,
> lol) of figuring out what's going on.
>
> - Jim
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Rafal M. Sulejman <mailto:rms_pl@...>
> *To:* snobol@yahoogroups.com <mailto:snobol@yahoogroups.com>
> *Sent:* Thursday, November 02, 2006 8:41 AM
> *Subject:* [snobol] Re: Snobol - Inspiration for Unix?
>
> --- In snobol@yahoogroups.com <mailto:snobol@yahoogroups.com>,
> "fnaa454" <fnaa454@...> wrote:
> >
> > Something that I heard once, and have never been able to
> confirm/deny,
> > is the claim that the Unix approach to file access (e.g. - open(),
> > followed by read/write, perhaps interspersed with seeks, followed by
> > close()) was directly inspired by a SNOBOL "API" on OS/360.
>
> I cannot find any evidence for the Snobol<->UNIX link.
> a) FORTRAN has OPEN and CLOSE statements
> b) Snobol was implemented on a system with functioning FORTRAN compiler
> c) the standard IDs of STDIN,STDOUT and STDERR in FORTRAN and SNOBOL
> are identical (AFAIR)
>
> a+b+c = the file operations were (I'm almost 100% sure) inherited by
> Snobol from FORTRAN
>
> Things SNOBOL strongly influenced:
> a) regular expressions
> b) awk
> c) Perl
>
> It did not influence Richard M. Stallman (and that's why emacs uses so
> lousy text matching ;-) )
>
> Bibliography:
> http://www.snobol4.org/history.html
> <http://www.snobol4.org/history.html>
> http://kerneltrap.org/node/4484/print
> <http://kerneltrap.org/node/4484/print>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran#FORTRAN_66
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran#FORTRAN_66>
>
> > If true, that could lead to a further bit of perspective on how Unix
> > became the way it is; if not, then I'd be happy enough to see the
> > needful holes poked...
>
> I'd be glad to hear some comments from people actually involved in
> Snobol(3|4) programming in '70s...
>
>

Hi, Jim.

I thought your name sounded familiar.  I am Henry Wong and had graduated
City College in 1970.  Spent some time at the CUNY Graduate Center in
the late 60's and early 70's.  Was also a SNOBOL lover.

Henry

Jim Korenthal wrote:
> Rafal,
>
> I studied S4 in school in the early 70's and wrote a sizeable S4
> production system (RILM 5-year Index) when I worked for the CUNY
> Graduate Center in 1973.  I agree with your comments about Fortran...
> in fact we thought of SPITBOL's I/O especially as particularly Fortran
> 4-influenced.  As I remember it (sometimes the brain gets a little
> fuzzy, hehe), there was no talk about S4 influencing Unix in its
> formative years.
>
> Saving a slot:  I mentioned in another message that I'm working on a
> text-based system for a marketing firm and that much of my prototyping
> is done in S4.  It's worth noting that the production system is written
> in C# and makes heavy use of Regular Expressions.  Prior to this system,
> I only used Regular Expressions for the simplest stuff because I could
> revert to S* when things got hairy.  But in this case, S* wasn't a
> viable option so I bit the bullet and learned everything there was to
> know about Regexes and was actually impressed...  you can cram a lot of
> parsing in relatively short statements, reminded me a bit of the
> pleasure of programming in APL.  However, just like APL, when you look
> back at your program it's REAL hard to remember what you did.  In fact,
> Regexes provide a special feature which allows you to split expressions
> across lines, ignoring spaces, and embedding comments in the middle of
> an expression.  This at least gives you a S*'s chance in hell (p.i.,
> lol) of figuring out what's going on.
>
> - Jim
>
>
>     ----- Original Message -----
>     *From:* Rafal M. Sulejman <mailto:rms_pl@...>
>     *To:* snobol@yahoogroups.com <mailto:snobol@yahoogroups.com>
>     *Sent:* Thursday, November 02, 2006 8:41 AM
>     *Subject:* [snobol] Re: Snobol - Inspiration for Unix?
>
>     --- In snobol@yahoogroups.com <mailto:snobol@yahoogroups.com>,
>     "fnaa454" <fnaa454@...> wrote:
>      >
>      > Something that I heard once, and have never been able to
>     confirm/deny,
>      > is the claim that the Unix approach to file access (e.g. - open(),
>      > followed by read/write, perhaps interspersed with seeks, followed by
>      > close()) was directly inspired by a SNOBOL "API" on OS/360.
>
>     I cannot find any evidence for the Snobol<->UNIX link.
>     a) FORTRAN has OPEN and CLOSE statements
>     b) Snobol was implemented on a system with functioning FORTRAN compiler
>     c) the standard IDs of STDIN,STDOUT and STDERR in FORTRAN and SNOBOL
>     are identical (AFAIR)
>
>     a+b+c = the file operations were (I'm almost 100% sure) inherited by
>     Snobol from FORTRAN
>
>     Things SNOBOL strongly influenced:
>     a) regular expressions
>     b) awk
>     c) Perl
>
>     It did not influence Richard M. Stallman (and that's why emacs uses so
>     lousy text matching ;-) )
>
>     Bibliography:
>     http://www.snobol4.org/history.html
>     <http://www.snobol4.org/history.html>
>     http://kerneltrap.org/node/4484/print
>     <http://kerneltrap.org/node/4484/print>
>     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran#FORTRAN_66
>     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran#FORTRAN_66>
>
>      > If true, that could lead to a further bit of perspective on how Unix
>      > became the way it is; if not, then I'd be happy enough to see the
>      > needful holes poked...
>
>     I'd be glad to hear some comments from people actually involved in
>     Snobol(3|4) programming in '70s...
>
>

The reason that (SIL) SNOBOL I/O so strongly resembles
FORTRAN I/O is very simple... it's because SIL SNOBOL made
use of the FORTRAN I/O package (/library) to implement its
functions...!


On Thu, 2 Nov 2006 12:57:37 -0500
   "Jim Korenthal" <JKorenthal@...> wrote:
> Rafal,
>
> I studied S4 in school in the early 70's and wrote a
>sizeable S4 production system (RILM 5-year Index) when I
>worked for the CUNY Graduate Center in 1973.  I agree
>with your comments about Fortran...  in fact we thought
>of SPITBOL's I/O especially as particularly Fortran
>4-influenced.  As I remember it (sometimes the brain gets
>a little fuzzy, hehe), there was no talk about S4
>influencing Unix in its formative years.
>
> Saving a slot:  I mentioned in another message that I'm
>working on a text-based system for a marketing firm and
>that much of my prototyping is done in S4.  It's worth
>noting that the production system is written in C# and
>makes heavy use of Regular Expressions.  Prior to this
>system, I only used Regular Expressions for the simplest
>stuff because I could revert to S* when things got hairy.
> But in this case, S* wasn't a viable option so I bit the
>bullet and learned everything there was to know about
>Regexes and was actually impressed...  you can cram a lot
>of parsing in relatively short statements, reminded me a
>bit of the pleasure of programming in APL.  However, just
>like APL, when you look back at your program it's REAL
>hard to remember what you did.  In fact, Regexes provide
>a special feature which allows you to split expressions
>across lines, ignoring spaces, and embedding comments in
>the middle of an expression.  This at least gives you a
>S*'s chance in hell (p.i., lol) of figuring out what's
>going on.
>
> - Jim
>
>  ----- Original Message -----
>  From: Rafal M. Sulejman
>  To: snobol@yahoogroups.com
>  Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2006 8:41 AM
>  Subject: [snobol] Re: Snobol - Inspiration for Unix?
>
>
>  --- In snobol@yahoogroups.com, "fnaa454" <fnaa454@...>
>wrote:
>  >
>  > Something that I heard once, and have never been able
>to confirm/deny,
>  > is the claim that the Unix approach to file access
>(e.g. - open(),
>  > followed by read/write, perhaps interspersed with
>seeks, followed by
>  > close()) was directly inspired by a SNOBOL "API" on
>OS/360.
>
>  I cannot find any evidence for the Snobol<->UNIX link.
>  a) FORTRAN has OPEN and CLOSE statements
>  b) Snobol was implemented on a system with functioning
>FORTRAN compiler
>  c) the standard IDs of STDIN,STDOUT and STDERR in
>FORTRAN and SNOBOL
>  are identical (AFAIR)
>
>  a+b+c = the file operations were (I'm almost 100% sure)
>inherited by
>  Snobol from FORTRAN
>
>  Things SNOBOL strongly influenced:
>  a) regular expressions
>  b) awk
>  c) Perl
>
>  It did not influence Richard M. Stallman (and that's
>why emacs uses so
>  lousy text matching ;-) )
>
>  Bibliography:
>  http://www.snobol4.org/history.html
>  http://kerneltrap.org/node/4484/print
>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran#FORTRAN_66
>
>  > If true, that could lead to a further bit of
>perspective on how Unix
>  > became the way it is; if not, then I'd be happy
>enough to see the
>  > needful holes poked...
>
>  I'd be glad to hear some comments from people actually
>involved in
>  Snobol(3|4) programming in '70s...
>
>
>
>

If I recall correctly, PL/1 had OPEN and CLOSE statements
back in the late 1960's... FWIW, I learned SNOBOL3
starting in fall 1970 (and quickly transitioned to SNOBOL4
and then to Macro SPITBOL) running under OS/MVT/HASP on an
IBM 360/75...

I do think it's very safe to say that the UNIX folks were
aware of SNOBOL... but clearly didn't have anything
remotely approaching (what was at that time) the VERY
large mainframe required to run SNOBOL properly, for their
UNIX development.  That's why they implemented the
relatively braindead teletype-style REGEX and control
character stuff that persists in UNIX to this day.

On Thu, 02 Nov 2006 21:04:14 -0000
   "vaneselk" <vaneselk@...> wrote:
> --- In snobol@yahoogroups.com, "Rafal M. Sulejman"
><rms_pl@...> wrote
> (in part):
>>
>> a) FORTRAN has OPEN and CLOSE statements
>>
>> ...
>>
>> I'd be glad to hear some comments from people actually
>>involved in
>> Snobol(3|4) programming in '70s...
>>
> OPEN and CLOSE statements were implemented in FORTRAN
>77; they did not
> exist in the prior implementations of FORTRAN I used
>(such as IBM's
>FORTRAN IV).  I received my first exposure to SNOBOL
>(SNOBOL 3 and 4)
> in the early 1970s.
>
> -- Ken VanEseltine

--- In snobol@yahoogroups.com, "Rafal M. Sulejman" <rms_pl@...> wrote
(in part):
>
> a) FORTRAN has OPEN and CLOSE statements
>
> ...
>
> I'd be glad to hear some comments from people actually involved in
> Snobol(3|4) programming in '70s...
>
OPEN and CLOSE statements were implemented in FORTRAN 77; they did not
exist in the prior implementations of FORTRAN I used (such as IBM's
FORTRAN IV). I received my first exposure to SNOBOL (SNOBOL 3 and 4)
in the early 1970s.

-- Ken VanEseltine

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.430 / Virus Database: 268.13.24/514 - Release Date: 11/2/2006 5:15 PM

-- Bernard Dickman
bndickman@...

--- In snobol@yahoogroups.com, "Rafal M. Sulejman" <rms_pl@...> wrote
(in part):
>
> a) FORTRAN has OPEN and CLOSE statements
>
> ...
>
> I'd be glad to hear some comments from people actually involved in
> Snobol(3|4) programming in '70s...
>
OPEN and CLOSE statements were implemented in FORTRAN 77; they did not
exist in the prior implementations of FORTRAN I used (such as IBM's
FORTRAN IV).  I received my first exposure to SNOBOL (SNOBOL 3 and 4)
in the early 1970s.

-- Ken VanEseltine

----- Original Message -----

From: Rafal M. Sulejman

To: snobol@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2006 8:41 AM

Subject: [snobol] Re: Snobol - Inspiration for Unix?

--- In snobol@yahoogroups.com, "fnaa454" <fnaa454@...> wrote:
>
> Something that I heard once, and have never been able to confirm/deny,
> is the claim that the Unix approach to file access (e.g. - open(),
> followed by read/write, perhaps interspersed with seeks, followed by
> close()) was directly inspired by a SNOBOL "API" on OS/360.

I cannot find any evidence for the Snobol<->UNIX link.
a) FORTRAN has OPEN and CLOSE statements
b) Snobol was implemented on a system with functioning FORTRAN compiler
c) the standard IDs of STDIN,STDOUT and STDERR in FORTRAN and SNOBOL
are identical (AFAIR)

a+b+c = the file operations were (I'm almost 100% sure) inherited by
Snobol from FORTRAN

Things SNOBOL strongly influenced:
a) regular expressions
b) awk
c) Perl

It did not influence Richard M. Stallman (and that's why emacs uses so
lousy text matching ;-) )

Bibliography:
http://www.snobol4.org/history.html
http://kerneltrap.org/node/4484/print
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran#FORTRAN_66

> If true, that could lead to a further bit of perspective on how Unix
> became the way it is; if not, then I'd be happy enough to see the
> needful holes poked...

I'd be glad to hear some comments from people actually involved in
Snobol(3|4) programming in '70s...

----- Original Message -----

From: Rafal M. Sulejman

To: snobol@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2006 8:41 AM

Subject: [snobol] Re: Snobol - Inspiration for Unix?

--- In snobol@yahoogroups.com, "fnaa454" <fnaa454@...> wrote:
>
> Something that I heard once, and have never been able to confirm/deny,
> is the claim that the Unix approach to file access (e.g. - open(),
> followed by read/write, perhaps interspersed with seeks, followed by
> close()) was directly inspired by a SNOBOL "API" on OS/360.

I cannot find any evidence for the Snobol<->UNIX link.
a) FORTRAN has OPEN and CLOSE statements
b) Snobol was implemented on a system with functioning FORTRAN compiler
c) the standard IDs of STDIN,STDOUT and STDERR in FORTRAN and SNOBOL
are identical (AFAIR)

a+b+c = the file operations were (I'm almost 100% sure) inherited by
Snobol from FORTRAN

Things SNOBOL strongly influenced:
a) regular expressions
b) awk
c) Perl

It did not influence Richard M. Stallman (and that's why emacs uses so
lousy text matching ;-) )

Bibliography:
http://www.snobol4.org/history.html
http://kerneltrap.org/node/4484/print
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran#FORTRAN_66

> If true, that could lead to a further bit of perspective on how Unix
> became the way it is; if not, then I'd be happy enough to see the
> needful holes poked...

I'd be glad to hear some comments from people actually involved in
Snobol(3|4) programming in '70s...

--- In snobol@yahoogroups.com, "fnaa454" <fnaa454@...> wrote:
>
> Something that I heard once, and have never been able to confirm/deny,
> is the claim that the Unix approach to file access (e.g. - open(),
> followed by read/write, perhaps interspersed with seeks, followed by
> close()) was directly inspired by a SNOBOL "API" on OS/360.

I cannot find any evidence for the Snobol<->UNIX link.
a) FORTRAN has OPEN and CLOSE statements
b) Snobol was implemented on a system with functioning FORTRAN compiler
c) the standard IDs of STDIN,STDOUT and STDERR in FORTRAN and SNOBOL
are identical (AFAIR)

a+b+c = the file operations were (I'm almost 100% sure) inherited by
Snobol from FORTRAN

Things SNOBOL strongly influenced:
a) regular expressions
b) awk
c) Perl

It did not influence Richard M. Stallman (and that's why emacs uses so
lousy text matching ;-) )

Bibliography:
http://www.snobol4.org/history.html
http://kerneltrap.org/node/4484/print
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran#FORTRAN_66

> If true, that could lead to a further bit of perspective on how Unix
> became the way it is; if not, then I'd be happy enough to see the
> needful holes poked...

I'd be glad to hear some comments from people actually involved in
Snobol(3|4) programming in '70s...

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.430 / Virus Database: 268.13.24/514 - Release Date: 11/2/2006 5:15 PM

-- Bernard Dickman
bndickman@...

--- In snobol@yahoogroups.com, "F. J. Townsend, III" <ftownsen@...> wrote:
[snip]
> I have archived messages from the S4 list from 12/98 to 6/06 and
> would also be happy to send them to anyone who can post them
> somewhere.

Could you upload your archives (at least years 1998-2001)?
I'm sure zipped files will hardly exceed 3MB/year...

--- In snobol@yahoogroups.com, "fnaa454" <fnaa454@...> wrote:
>
> Something that I heard once, and have never been able to confirm/deny,
> is the claim that the Unix approach to file access (e.g. - open(),
> followed by read/write, perhaps interspersed with seeks, followed by
> close()) was directly inspired by a SNOBOL "API" on OS/360.

I cannot find any evidence for the Snobol<->UNIX link.
a) FORTRAN has OPEN and CLOSE statements
b) Snobol was implemented on a system with functioning FORTRAN compiler
c) the standard IDs of STDIN,STDOUT and STDERR in FORTRAN and SNOBOL
are identical (AFAIR)

a+b+c = the file operations were (I'm almost 100% sure) inherited by
Snobol from FORTRAN

Things SNOBOL strongly influenced:
a) regular expressions
b) awk
c) Perl

It did not influence Richard M. Stallman (and that's why emacs uses so
lousy text matching ;-) )

Bibliography:
http://www.snobol4.org/history.html
http://kerneltrap.org/node/4484/print
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran#FORTRAN_66

> If true, that could lead to a further bit of perspective on how Unix
> became the way it is; if not, then I'd be happy enough to see the
> needful holes poked...

I'd be glad to hear some comments from people actually involved in
Snobol(3|4) programming in '70s...

----- Original Message -----

From: Mike Radow

To: SNOBOL4 Yahoo group

Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 4:17 PM

Subject: [snobol] About Ralph...

-
Hi all!

The other day, a fellow in one of the local computer clubs asked me if
I knew anything about Ralph Griswold's background. He'd heard that
Ralph had passed away on October fourth. For readers here, who may be
also be curious...:

I pointed this fellow to the obit in the ''Tucson Citizen''...:

http://tinyurl.com/yj3zkj

And to the CS Department at U_AZ...:

http://www.cs.arizona.edu/news/articles/200610-griswold.html

And a detailed article by Ehud Lamm at...:

http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/1780#comment-21647

The Wikipedia entry is standard, tho' the bibliography seems full:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Griswold

- - - - - -,,,and,,,

Semi-related...:

#1. There's a 45 page transcript of a 1990 ''oral history''
interview -- done for Charles Babbage Institute -- at...:

http://www.cbi.umn.edu/oh/pdf.phtml?id=135

I read parts of this several years ago and there are some
fascinating items here. Search "Farber" and you'll see
how SNOBOL4 "escaped" from BTL, probably helping to start
the concept of free software distriution.

#2. Ralph also had an (odd) mathematical interest in _non_-textual
patterns, which included weaving. Hyper-eclectic readers --
who are as yet unfamiliar with this passion of Ralph's --
can expend great amounts of time at...:

http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/weavedocs.html

#3. ? Dija know Ralph's _son_, Bill, is a CS prof at UCSD...:

http://tinyurl.com/yxbpqh

#4. The original journal article describing SNOBOL was in a 1964
issue of the JACM...:

Farber, D.J., Griswold, R.E. and Polonsky, I.P.,
SNOBOL -- A String Manipulation Language,
Journal of the ACM, Vol 11 (1), pp 21-30, 1964,
SSN:0004-5411

For ACM members and those with access via a subscribing
research library, there is a (readable) non-OCR scan at...:

http://tinyurl.com/yfp3w4

Here's the Abstract for this article...:

/\/\/\
-
ABSTRACT

SNOBOL is a programming language for the manipulation of strings of
symbols. A statement in the SNOBOL language consists of a rule that
operates on symbolically named strings. The basic operations are string
formation, pattern matching and replacement. Facilities for integer
arithmetic, indirect referencing, and input-output are included. In the
design of the language, emphasis has been placed on a format that is
simple and intuitive. SNOBOL has been implemented for the IBM 7090.
-
\/\/\/

- - - - - - -

I have fond memories of Ralph, from 1972 to '75. I'd be sitting with
Rich Siegler, at Columbia University's Watson Labs, when Rich would
call Ralph. I said little or nothing. Rich would go through a long list
of S4 SIL bugs and and even longer list of proposed S4 enhancements;
Ralph would ever-patiently respond to each one...

It wasn't until ICEBOL, several years later, that I actually met him.
After that, several times, I passed through Tucson for business. I
always stopped by U_AZ to see Ralph. We would chat and sometimes have
lunch, often he'd bring along a grad student or other faculty member,
seeming selected at random: The discussions were always fascinating. He
was always gracious and incisive (he had a extremely powerful
"foolishness detector") ... and will be firmly remembered by me. Mike

__________________________________________________________
Get your email and see which of your friends are online - Right on the New Yahoo.com
(http://www.yahoo.com/preview)

-
Hi all!

The other day, a fellow in one of the local computer clubs asked me if
I knew anything about Ralph Griswold's background. He'd heard that
Ralph had passed away on October fourth. For readers here, who may be
also be curious...:

I pointed this fellow to the obit in the ''Tucson Citizen''...:

      http://tinyurl.com/yj3zkj


And to the CS Department at U_AZ...:

      http://www.cs.arizona.edu/news/articles/200610-griswold.html


And a detailed article by Ehud Lamm at...:

      http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/1780#comment-21647


The Wikipedia entry is standard, tho' the bibliography seems full:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Griswold

- - - - - -,,,and,,,

Semi-related...:

#1. There's a 45 page transcript of a 1990 ''oral history''
     interview -- done for Charles Babbage Institute -- at...:

           http://www.cbi.umn.edu/oh/pdf.phtml?id=135

     I read parts of this several years ago and there are some
     fascinating items here. Search "Farber" and you'll see
     how SNOBOL4 "escaped" from BTL, probably helping to start
     the concept of free software distriution.


#2. Ralph also had an (odd) mathematical interest in _non_-textual
     patterns, which included weaving. Hyper-eclectic readers --
     who are as yet unfamiliar with this passion of Ralph's --
     can expend great amounts of time at...:

         http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/weavedocs.html


#3. ? Dija know Ralph's _son_, Bill, is a CS prof at UCSD...:

         http://tinyurl.com/yxbpqh


#4. The original journal article describing SNOBOL was in a 1964
     issue of the JACM...:

          Farber, D.J., Griswold, R.E. and Polonsky, I.P.,
             SNOBOL -- A String Manipulation Language,
             Journal of the ACM, Vol 11 (1), pp 21-30, 1964,
             SSN:0004-5411

      For ACM members and those with access via a subscribing
      research library, there is a (readable) non-OCR scan at...:

              http://tinyurl.com/yfp3w4

      Here's the Abstract for this article...:

/\/\/\
-
ABSTRACT

SNOBOL is a programming language for the manipulation of strings of
symbols. A statement in the SNOBOL language consists of a rule that
operates on symbolically named strings. The basic operations are string
formation, pattern matching and replacement. Facilities for integer
arithmetic, indirect referencing, and input-output are included. In the
design of the language, emphasis has been placed on a format that is
simple and intuitive. SNOBOL has been implemented for the IBM 7090.
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\/\/\/

- - - - - - -

I have fond memories of Ralph, from 1972 to '75. I'd be sitting with
Rich Siegler, at Columbia University's Watson Labs, when Rich would
call Ralph. I said little or nothing. Rich would go through a long list
of S4 SIL bugs and and even longer list of proposed S4 enhancements;
Ralph would ever-patiently respond to each one...

It wasn't until ICEBOL, several years later, that I actually met him.
After that, several times, I passed through Tucson for business. I
always stopped by U_AZ to see Ralph. We would chat and sometimes have
lunch, often he'd bring along a grad student or other faculty member,
seeming selected at random: The discussions were always fascinating. He
was always gracious and incisive (he had a extremely powerful
"foolishness detector") ... and will be firmly remembered by me. Mike



________________________________________________________________________________\
____
Get your email and see which of your friends are online - Right on the New
Yahoo.com
(http://www.yahoo.com/preview)

Something that I heard once, and have never been able to confirm/deny,
is the claim that the Unix approach to file access (e.g. - open(),
followed by read/write, perhaps interspersed with seeks, followed by
close()) was directly inspired by a SNOBOL "API" on OS/360.

If true, that could lead to a further bit of perspective on how Unix
became the way it is; if not, then I'd be happy enough to see the
needful holes poked...

you can find (my) S4ML archives in 'Files' section.
The biggest (flat) file size -- after removing most headers and
significant parts of email addresses and compressing (DOS-friendly
zip) -- is ca. 2.2MB.

Enjoy, watch the transfer quota (AFAIR it isn't unlimited).

--- In snobol@yahoogroups.com, "Logan Kinnison" <lckinni@...> wrote:

> Is the 32M file, zipped or flat?

Last time I just did 'du -sh' (disk usage) in my snobol4 mail
directory. So - flat, uncompressed file (actually - many thousands of
files).
I managed to compress it to ca. 6MB (tar + gzip).

-----Original Message-----
From: snobol@yahoogroups.com [mailto:snobol@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of Marius Amado-Alves
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 6:46 PM
To: snobol@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [snobol] Re: Balkanization of Snobol4 online resources

> Yahoo groups supports a 'files' option where files can be
> up/downloaded.
>
> Perhaps these archives could be cut into yearly and put in
> the 'files' are for members to download.

I thought about that but I went to see if there was space and it seems
there is only 20M available which is not enough not even for the
single file of 32M a person here wants to donate. Anyone with Gigs
available step forward ;-) Or else may I suggest a distributed
approach: each person with a big file publishes the file on *his*
homepage of somesuch, and creates a *link* to that in the Yahoo area.

> I thought about that but I went to see if there was space and it seems
> there is only 20M available which is not enough not even for the
> single file of 32M a person here wants to donate. Anyone with Gigs
> available step forward ;-) Or else may I suggest a distributed
> approach: each person with a big file publishes the file on *his*
> homepage of somesuch, and creates a *link* to that in the Yahoo area.

I can offer disk space and bandwidth if somebody want to make the file
available to me to copy of these logs.

--
Derek M. Jones                              tel: +44 (0) 1252 520 667
Knowledge Software Ltd                      mailto:derek@...
Applications Standards Conformance Testing    http://www.knosof.co.uk

> Yahoo groups supports a 'files' option where files can be
> up/downloaded.
>
> Perhaps these archives could be cut into yearly and put in
> the 'files' are for members to download.

I thought about that but I went to see if there was space and it seems
there is only 20M available which is not enough not even for the
single file of 32M a person here wants to donate. Anyone with Gigs
available step forward ;-) Or else may I suggest a distributed
approach: each person with a big file publishes the file on *his*
homepage of somesuch, and creates a *link* to that in the Yahoo area.

Hello all!  8^)

P.

Frank,

> I have archived messages from the S4 list from 12/98 to 6/06 and
> would also be happy to send them to anyone who can post them
> somewhere.

Yahoo groups supports a 'files' option where files can be
up/downloaded.

Perhaps these archives could be cut into yearly and put in
the 'files' are for members to download.

--
Derek M. Jones                              tel: +44 (0) 1252 520 667
Knowledge Software Ltd                      mailto:derek@...
Applications Standards Conformance Testing    http://www.knosof.co.uk

Greetings to everyone!

I have archived messages from the S4 list from 12/98 to 6/06 and
would also be happy to send them to anyone who can post them
somewhere.

Although I mostly lurk, I am glad to see the list back.

Frank Townsend
Baltimore

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rafal M. Sulejman" <rafal@...>
To: <snobol@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 6:34 AM
Subject: Re: [snobol] Re: Balkanization of Snobol4 online
resources



/snip/


: I have... (checking...) almost all S4ML messages between 2001
and
: 2006. It's ca. 32MB of text. Maybe i should put them in
'Download'
: area...

* "jhrlindsay" <jlindsay@...> [Monday 30 October 2006 02:04]:
> --- In snobol@yahoogroups.com, "efeustel" <efeustel@...> wrote:
> .....
> > So lets make the most of the current situation. We hope that
> > the word will get to all "castaways" and that most of them
> > can live with the yahoogroups agreement. So in summary, we
> > hope to continue the S4ML with less spam and invective.
> >
> > Please notify those you know who might be interested and ask
> > that they do the same.
>
> Yes, let's get the old gang plus any new ones together here.

There's a link on Phil's "Snobol4 Resources" page, link in "Links"
section of the "SPITBOL Yahoo! Group". I hope everybody finds
his/her way here...

> My machine is not yet in shape to do this and won't for a
> couple of weeks (I have to install a couple of operating
> systems and copy a raft of stuff from defunct drives), but I'm
> wondering if anyone is like me in this -- I keep copies of
> interesting or useful mailing-list e-mails and newsgroup posts
> filed in appropriate mail-reader folders for reference, and
> the copies in my SNOBOL4 folder and others go back a few years.

I have... (checking...) almost all S4ML messages between 2001 and
2006. It's ca. 32MB of text. Maybe i should put them in 'Download'
area...

> It should be possible to extract the e-mail addresses, including
> even the spam-protected ones, from collections like mine and
> send the ones who showed an interest in SNOBOL4 a short notice
> (like the one that got me here).  I know it sounds like spam,
> but I say there's a difference; we're out to save a language and
> technology, not annoy or make $$$$.  All the best to us!

I have a relatively fresh address list retrieved from
mercury.dsu.edu. I'll try (in my spare time) to send announcements
to people on the list (and I hope I won't be killed for spamming
;-) )

--
* Rafal M. Sulejman / http://rms.republika.pl/slide.shtml   ;* + _ _ _
s b = table(); o = 'aa .Slja rspct.ntp>l.eoazo@m<nmeu MlfR' ;* _ + _ _
n o = reverse(o); o len(1) . b<(a = a + 1)> = :s(n);        ;* _ + _ _
o l = l ?lt((z = z + 1),a) b<z> :s(o); output = l;end;      ;* + _ _ +

----- Original Message -----

From: jhrlindsay

To: snobol@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Sunday, October 29, 2006 2:11 PM

Subject: [snobol] Whee! We're back!

Thanks for doing this guys .... again! I have dreams,
I hope realistic ones, about doing things with and for
Snobol4 again.

John.

Add my thanks for starting this group.  While I haven't used much
S*bol in the last few years, it has been a staple of my toolkit for
over 20 years and I would hate to see it disappear entirely.

we shall endure  ;-)

pat

--- In snobol@yahoogroups.com, "efeustel" <efeustel@...> wrote:
.....
> So lets make the most of the current situation. We hope that
> the word will get to all "castaways" and that most of them
> can live with the yahoogroups agreement. So in summary, we
> hope to continue the S4ML with less spam and invective.
>
> Please notify those you know who might be interested and
> ask that they do the same.

Yes, let's get the old gang plus any new ones together here.
My machine is not yet in shape to do this and won't for a
couple of weeks (I have to install a couple of operating
systems and copy a raft of stuff from defunct drives), but I'm
wondering if anyone is like me in this -- I keep copies of
interesting or useful mailing-list e-mails and newsgroup posts
filed in appropriate mail-reader folders for reference, and
the copies in my SNOBOL4 folder and others go back a few years.
It should be possible to extract the e-mail addresses,
including even the spam-protected ones, from collections like
mine and send the ones who showed an interest in SNOBOL4 a
short notice (like the one that got me here).  I know it
sounds like spam, but I say there's a difference; we're out
to save a language and technology, not annoy or make $$$$.
All the best to us!

John H. Lindsay.

--- In snobol@yahoogroups.com, "No Answer" <rms_pl@...> wrote:
>
> Do not mis-understand me, I'm really happy our small, loose community
> found (yet another) place to meet online...
>
> But... so far i joined:
> - S4ML (deceased) - 120 users?
> - snobol4 (archive Yahoo group, now inactive)
> - notsnobol (the small, off-topic discussion group for S4ML users -
> more or less inactive) - 9 users
> - SPITBOL (not dead, but not-overused)
> - snobol (this one) - ca. 30 users at the moment.
>
> where should it end? ;-)
>
> BTW. I found the group via my Google Alert (crypto-ad ;-) ) -- keyword
> "snobol". It noticed an 'icon-group' post announcing creation of this
> group. Other S4ML castaways may not have enough luck to find it...
>
S4ML's server died, taking the mail list with it. The current
invitations are
to those whose addresses Mike Radow recorded. Many of these addresses
are no longer valid. Some persons refuse to receive any invitations!

We considered taking over snobol4, but there did not seem to be an
owner or way to get in touch with him/her/them.

So lets make the most of the current situation. We hope that the word
will get to all "castaways" and that most of them can live with the
yahoogroups agreement. So in summary, we hope to continue the S4ML
with less spam and invective.

Please notify those you know who might be interested and ask that they
do the same.

Ed Feustel

Thanks for doing this guys .... again!  I have dreams,
I hope realistic ones, about doing things with and for
Snobol4 again.

John.

Do not mis-understand me, I'm really happy our small, loose community
found (yet another) place to meet online...

But... so far i joined:
- S4ML (deceased) - 120 users?
- snobol4 (archive Yahoo group, now inactive)
- notsnobol (the small, off-topic discussion group for S4ML users -
more or less inactive) - 9 users
- SPITBOL (not dead, but not-overused)
- snobol (this one) - ca. 30 users at the moment.

where should it end? ;-)

BTW. I found the group via my Google Alert (crypto-ad ;-) ) -- keyword
"snobol". It noticed an 'icon-group' post announcing creation of this
group. Other S4ML castaways may not have enough luck to find it...

I am glad to see that the Snobol list is not dead, yet!

Thanks for the CPR.

Larry Gregg