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Peter Jakacki
thinker tinker

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 936

Posted 10/29/2009 4:32 PM (GMT -8)

Hi guys (n gals),

I was just writing up a new datasheet and I decided to expand on the short description I normally give to the Propeller and in particular the way it is programmed. In a C centric world saying that the Propeller is programmed in Spin is not very helpful. I could say it is Pascal-like maybe? But they may draw the wrong conclusions (them, not me). To me a language is a language, all of them have pro's and con's but how would you describe Spin as language and do so succinctly and positively?

*Peter*

Bill Henning
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 962

Posted 10/29/2009 4:36 PM (GMT -8)

Hmm... Spin is closest to Python methinks

Peter Jakacki said...
Hi guys (n gals),

I was just writing up a new datasheet and I decided to expand on the short description I normally give to the Propeller and in particular the way it is programmed. In a C centric world saying that the Propeller is programmed in Spin is not very helpful. I could say it is Pascal-like maybe? But they may draw the wrong conclusions (them, not me). To me a language is a language, all of them have pro's and con's but how would you describe Spin as language and do so succinctly and positively?

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Peter Jakacki
thinker tinker

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 936

Posted 10/29/2009 4:39 PM (GMT -8)

How so Bill? I was just mentioning in the datasheet that the Spin runtime execution is a bit like Java byte code execution (actually, I reckon it's more like Forth at this level). But the high level source code could a mix of several languages so in what ways would it be similar to Python?

*Peter*

localroger
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2009
Total Posts : 417

Posted 10/29/2009 4:52 PM (GMT -8)

An original language, designed to teach concepts and to be learned easily no matter what previous languages you know. Has even more whitespace awareness than the many variants of BASIC, in an obvious bid to force good indentation practices. C-like in that it uses null terminated strings in fixed-length assigned storage and doesn't enforce data types or array bounds, as well as bracket syntax for array indeces. Python-like with its powerful and sometimes obscure expression evaluator. Forth-like in its bytecode implementation. One of the few languages to truly enforce Djikstra's admonition about GOTO by not implementing it, at all. You cannot find any one language or development tool and say "This is what Spin is a clone of." It truly is a synthesis of the strengths (in a very particular manner of evaluation) of many different approaches.

mpark
Registered Member

Date Joined May 2007
Total Posts : 682

Posted 10/29/2009 5:01 PM (GMT -8)

localroger said...
...
Python-like with its powerful and sometimes obscure expression evaluator.

Example, please? I'm not seeing it.

localroger said...
...
Forth-like in its bytecode implementation.

I don't know about this. The Spin "virtual machine" is stack-based, but it takes more than that to be Forth-like (in particular, I believe most Forth people would say a defining characteristic of Forth is its separate data and return stacks).

Peter Jakacki
thinker tinker

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 936

Posted 10/29/2009 5:15 PM (GMT -8)

As a Forth person (though not much recently) and having written various Forths for different processors including a byte-token version. I can say that terminologies asides that the Spin run-time is very Forth-like. Of course Spin uses local variable stacks but such things can be and are implemented in Forth as my versions would also sport a separate loop stack rather than use the return stack etc.

Now, how about a description....

*Peter*

Bill Henning
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 962

Posted 10/29/2009 5:27 PM (GMT -8)

As I recall Python also uses indentation to indicate scope, and also compiles to a byte code.

Peter Jakacki said...
How so Bill? I was just mentioning in the datasheet that the Spin runtime execution is a bit like Java byte code execution (actually, I reckon it's more like Forth at this level). But the high level source code could a mix of several languages so in what ways would it be similar to Python?

jazzed
_oOo_(^^)_oOo_

Date Joined Jan 2008
Total Posts : 2114

Posted 10/29/2009 5:34 PM (GMT -8)

It is an "object.method" language similar in some ways to all the languages you love except for a few extra weird equality operators.

waltc
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2008
Total Posts : 145

Posted 10/29/2009 6:37 PM (GMT -8)

Its Basic with just a touch of C and Pascal and a dash of OOP. Not industrial strength OPP like Smalltalk but a smattering.

RvnPhnx
Registered Member

Date Joined Dec 2008
Total Posts : 16

Posted 10/30/2009 4:20 AM (GMT -8)

I'd just say that it's a nearly typeless whitespace-aware programming language with minimalist OOP.

-------------------
--RvnPhnx

StefanL38
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 958

Posted 10/30/2009 10:02 AM (GMT -8)

as you would like to invoke interest in it

to professional programmers a description that makes them feel challenged what I should not be able to learn it ?

to newbees a description that gives confidence:
you will learn it almost as quick as basic but if you have learned you are fare above
of what basic-programmers can do. And you are well prepared for other languages

Or to say ot similar like localroger quote "It truly is a synthesis of the strengths (in a very particular manner of evaluation) of many different approaches."

It takes the best from the most popular programming languages and combines them to suit very well to the hardware of the propeller.
As the propeller is a multi-core-microcontroller, start by using a single core. Use a second core as easy as starting a second program on your PC for backround-drivers
to replace easily interrupt-programming.
By the time add more an more cores as you drive up the learning-curve leaving other microcontrollers behind.
Where others are fiddling around to speed up IRQ-subroutines stay relaxed by just starting another core.

In my eyes Chip did a really great job. The architecture, SPIN-syntax, the propeller-IDE everything well developed to work effectivly

best regards

Stefan

Post Edited (StefanL38) : 10/30/2009 10:29:18 PM GMT

Nick Mueller
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2007
Total Posts : 697

Posted 10/30/2009 2:09 PM (GMT -8)

Spin is a basic patchwork of different languages. The result is:
* Weird operators that redefined standards set by other languages.
* Bended and blended different meanings into one scope (byte, word, long; whenever I read that, I slam my head; word should be 32 bits on on 32 bit processor).
* Took buzzwords from other languages to make it shine ("objects", but it's not OO).
* Completely untyped and thus not suited for education
* Lacks concepts for save coding
* Designed by someone with no background in language-design

Sorry, had to write that, but its true. And I'm tired of the repeated hurras about SPIN. SPIN is crap, but it works and its a compact language. And only worth learning because it comes along with the processor.

Nick

Never use force, just go for a bigger hammer!

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Nick Mueller
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2007
Total Posts : 697

Posted 10/30/2009 2:09 PM (GMT -8)

Never use force, just go for a bigger hammer!

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YADRO

potatohead
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Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 1340

Posted 10/30/2009 2:50 PM (GMT -8)

LOL!!!

I would describe SPIN as lean, useful, easy to learn, and well matched to the processor hardware attributes. There is nothing else like SPIN + PASM.

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localroger
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2009
Total Posts : 417

Posted 10/30/2009 5:22 PM (GMT -8)

OK, let's have a flame war! Nick said (twice, just to make sure we got it)...

Spin is a basic patchwork of different languages. The result is:
* Weird operators that redefined standards set by other languages.

With a couple of exceptions (most notably the very efficient but hatedly obscure ~ and ~~ operators) everything in Spin is found somewhere else. They aren't all found in one language, but are a distillation of what works best and (particularly) is most memory efficient in all of them. This is not an unreasonable design goal on a platform that is deliberately memory-limited.

* Bended and blended different meanings into one scope (byte, word, long; whenever I read that, I slam my head; word should be 32 bits on on 32 bit processor).

This is as stupid as the Comp Sci teacher I had back in 1981 who insited "byte" meant "any subdivision of a word" instead of "8 bits." He was wrong then, time having marched on, and you are wrong now. On embedded platforms in particular a word is 16 bits just as a byte is 8. "Long" is a reasonable extension to assert 32. As for using the word length of the machine in any meaningful way, that's been dead since IBM advertised the 8088-based IBM PC as a "16-bit" processor back in 1982.

* Took buzzwords from other languages to make it shine ("objects", but it's not OO).

Only because it doesn't do YOUR VERSION of OO. In 1970 it would have been considered quite radically OO. (No GOTO? No, really, you mean no GOTO at ALL? And if I need to send some data to the video, and it's in southland object, and I just well you mean I really can't just send it the data from northpark object? AT ALL? I mean they're in the SAME MEMORY SPACE man, DO YOU REALIZE HOW CRAZY THAT IS? /1979 self)

* Completely untyped and thus not suited for education

If by "education" you mean "educating people how to write modern high-level code" then maybe yah. But if you mean "educating people how the damn computer works and therefore how to write better code in their modern high-level environments" then you fail it.

* Lacks concepts for save coding

I suppose it is an example of my philistinism that I can't even figure out what you are talking about here. Unless you mistyped "safe" in which case I'd say the first tool in writing safe code is learning the hard way to write safe code in an unsafe environment. After a few crashes and three day debug fests to find the missing ~ you learn not to depend on the tools, which don't always work. The tools are great when they do work but when they don't work if you can't do it the old-fashioned way you are teh screwz0r3d, and the Prop is meant to teach you to do it the old-fashioned way.

* Designed by someone with no background in language-design

And by the same criterion I insist to this day Grandma Moses can't possibly be an artist, because nobody ever taught her how to paint right.

ericball
Registered Member

Date Joined May 2007
Total Posts : 277

Posted 10/30/2009 5:43 PM (GMT -8)

Nick Mueller said...
* Weird operators that redefined standards set by other languages.

In other words, not propogating the broken C precedence, and using <= and >= as assignment operators instead of comparisons.

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jazzed
_oOo_(^^)_oOo_

Date Joined Jan 2008
Total Posts : 2114

Posted 10/30/2009 6:03 PM (GMT -8)

I *always* forget the redefinition of >= compared to C and it costs me hours of misery. @ericball, maybe some light on the brokenness of the C definition is in order ?

At least "word" is defined by the language as 16 bits which I hope does not change. It is a trap we already fell into once with "int" and hope we don't get a repeat.

Actually method signatures are typed as "long" whether one likes it or not. Of course there is no warning if one accidentally abuses that.

Post Edited (jazzed) : 10/31/2009 2:14:03 AM GMT

ElectricAye
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2008
Total Posts : 972

Posted 10/30/2009 7:32 PM (GMT -8)

Nick Mueller said...
....byte, word, long; whenever I read that, I slam my head...

byte, word, long
byte, word, long
byte, word, long
byte, word, long
byte, word, long
byte, word, long
byte, word, long
byte, word, long
byte, word, long
byte, word, long
byte, word, long
byte, word, long
byte, word, long
byte, word, long

Hey, Nick, how does your head feel now?

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2006
Total Posts : 6000

Posted 10/30/2009 7:40 PM (GMT -8)

Just out of curiosity, and not to start anything, has anyone ever used >= and <= for their defined purposes? If so, how and why? They're rather odd in that they change the intrinsic type of a "number" variable to "boolean", which is a strange thing for any modify-and-assign operator to do.

-Phil

BradC
Gronk

Date Joined Jul 2007
Total Posts : 1577

Posted 10/30/2009 11:25 PM (GMT -8)

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) said...
Just out of curiosity, and not to start anything, has anyone ever used >= and <= for their defined purposes? If so, how and why? They're rather odd in that they change the intrinsic type of a "number" variable to "boolean", which is a strange thing for any modify-and-assign operator to do.

I initially found a few of the assign operators peculiar, but when you look into the interpreter source and you see how the compiler builds assignments like that I suspect it was almost easier to let all operators that could be assignments be so rather than special case them so they don't. If you get my drift.

If you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got.lt's not particularly silly, is it?

localroger
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2009
Total Posts : 417

Posted 10/31/2009 4:24 AM (GMT -8)

Actually, I've used <= and >=, generally when I have a temp var that starts out as a value and ends up as a flag for future reference after the operation. But BradC is right that they probably ended up that way more for consistency than usefulness, and it wouldn't break my heart if Spin did that more like Basic.

One thing I really like about Spin is the way it handles Boolean operations. The usual way of using bitwise operators for Boolean is elegant but when you start using source values other than 0 and -1 it can get tricky. Having the distinct Boolean operators that coerce all nonzero values to -1 is very handy, very readable, and especially useful when you're mixing data types like mad to save RAM and your byte -1 looks like 255 compared to your word -1.

Sapieha
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2007
Total Posts : 719

Posted 10/31/2009 5:04 AM (GMT -8)

Hi all.

My litle addition on naming BYTE, WORD, LONG it is most logical.

BUT some assembly languges name it BYTE, WORD, DUBLE Word, and at last 64 bits ... Quad Word.

In my opinion no mather what name is ... Only it that name is understandable.

All "weired" operators that some CALL it ... WHT it is so much discusion on that .... It is not to hard to learn!!!!

What about describing SPIN ...... It is just SPIN Language not mather if it are Like other -- Diference Give it its new possiblites that are needed for Propeller to function.

Istead of time to discus that .... Give it TIME to Learn IT. Then it will be Yours next language.

Ragards
ChJ

Nothing is impossible, there are only different degrees of difficulty.

For every stupid question there is at least one intelligent answer.

Don't guess - ask instead.

If you don't ask you won't know.

If your gonna construct something, make it as simple as possible yet as versatile as posible.

Sapieha

João Geada
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2007
Total Posts : 55

Posted 10/31/2009 7:45 AM (GMT -8)

I'm with Nick on this. SPIN is a very strange language.
Sure, relatively easy to learn ... *BUT* no easier than many other idiosyncratic dead programming languages.
Very few people coming to this hobby come into it from a vacuum; most everyone here has had some programming
experience and SPIN being so different from everything leverages very little of that experience.

Fundamentally SPIN exists because Chip found it easier/more enjoyable to create a new language than to
understand and do the work to adopt an existing language to the propeller. And I wouldn't discount the
economic point for Parallax to have a captive audience by having a proprietary language.

If SPIN was such a wonderful thing, how come that nobody outside this Propeller community uses or is even aware of SPIN?
How come SPIN has not been adopted by anybody else?
And if SPIN is so wonderful, how come there are so many development efforts here to create alternative compilers/languages?

---
João

Sapieha
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2007
Total Posts : 719

Posted 10/31/2009 8:00 AM (GMT -8)

Hi João Geada.

You said...
"If SPIN was such a wonderful thing, how come that nobody outside this Propeller community uses or is even aware of SPIN?
How come SPIN has not been adopted by anybody else?"

It is not true... Look on This Doc ... How near that are Spin programings MODEL

Regards
ChJ

Nothing is impossible, there are only different degrees of difficulty.

For every stupid question there is at least one intelligent answer.

Don't guess - ask instead.

If you don't ask you won't know.

If your gonna construct something, make it as simple as possible yet as versatile as posible.

Sapieha

File Attachment :
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This file has been downloaded 15 time(s).

waltc
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2008
Total Posts : 145

Posted 10/31/2009 8:47 AM (GMT -8)

Got to agree with Nick on a few points

Spin is totally unsuited to teaching beginners programming or learning about micro-controllers for that matter.

Its saving grace is that Parallax included a bunch of useful objects when it was released and that it came free with the Prop.

I just hope the PropII isn't tied to Spin like the current version is.

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