Announcing MacGofer 0.16 beta
-----------------------------
MacGofer[*] Version 0.16 is now available for beta test by anonymous FTP.
MacGofer is a standalone Macintosh port of the popular Gofer functional
language interpreter. It incorporates an integrated editing
environment, with the usual Macintosh features, but limited to 32K. A
command-line worksheet is provided, which allows previously entered
expressions to be edited and re-evaluated. Memory settings are fully
configurable. The entire Gofer language is supported, including
floating-point arithmetic and 32-bit integers. There are too many
other features to list here: see the documentation in the basic Mac
package for full details!
Version 0.16 implements Unix Gofer 2.21, with some bug fixes and
extensions (full floating point support, for example). A port to the
most recent version is currently underway. I plan to release the
sources when this is completed (in MPW C). For the philistines among
you, the sources should also generate an MPW tool.
This version of MacGofer seems reasonably stable: I have eliminated
every major bug that I'm aware of, but as with any beta-test software,
be careful! Please let me know if you find any bugs (there is a bug
report form included in the documentation). Also let me know if you
like it, or think it can be improved in any way! Note: support for
MacGofer comes from my limited free time, so you should not expect
commercial standards of responsiveness to problems!!
Conditions of Use
-----------------
MacGofer is *free* for personal or educational use. It is not public
domain (the copyright rests with myself, Mark Jones and others who have
worked on this project). You are therefore not free to sell MacGofer
in any form, or include it in any for-sale software distribution
(including a collection of shareware) without the authors' permission.
If you give it to anyone, you should make these conditions clear to
them (see also the ReadMe file for Mark's standard Gofer conditions).
Any programs written using this system are your property, of course!
The authors accept no responsibility for loss or damage resulting from
the use of this software. Use at your own risk!
Obtaining MacGofer
------------------
Use anonymous ftp to ftp.dcs.glasgow.ac.uk [130.209.240.50],
then cd to pub/haskell/gofer/macgofer.
The relevant files are:
MacGofer_0.16.sea.hqx -- MacGofer, plus demos and documention
MacGofer_Manuals.sit.hqx -- The Gofer manual as Mac text files
Full_Gofer_Manual.hqx -- A standalone version of the manual
If you already have Gofer for another system, then you probably only
want the first of these. These are all BinHex4 encoded files. This is
the universal transfer format for the Mac community: ask a local Mac
expert if you don't have a copy. Don't ask me to send you this program
electronically -- I'd need to encode it using BinHex4!
I'll put new public versions of MacGofer here as they become available.
System Details
--------------
MacGofer should run on any Macintosh with sufficient memory on any
version of the System later than 4.1. I recommend System 7.x if
possible: it has been most extensively tested under this system, and
exploits some System 7 features if these are available.
MacGofer needs a 1M partition to run. Your machine should therefore
have at least 2M memory, or 2.5M if you are running MultiFinder or
System 7. If you have a choice of Macs, use the fastest!
Should you use MacGofer, or Concurrent Clean?
---------------------------------------------
MacGofer is an interpreter, designed for rapid prototyping, and for
teaching. The Gofer language is a Haskell deriviative. MacGofer has a
simple, but powerful user interface, and runs in very little memory.
As distributed, MacGofer does not support access to the Macintosh
Toolbox, and standalone programs cannot be written. Being interpreted,
programs run much more slowly than those a compiler would produce.
Concurrent Clean is a compiler, designed for efficient execution of
compiled programs. Concurrent programs may be written. The Clean
language is based on term-rewriting, but at least one translator is
available from a more conventional syntax. Standalone applications can
written, which can access many features of the Macintosh Toolbox.
The compiler produces excellent code. Its memory requirements are
less modest than those for MacGofer, however.
Concurrent Clean is available from Rinus Plasmeijer and Marko van
Eekelen's group in the Department of Informatics and Mathematics at the
Catholic University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands. I don't have FTP
details.
Kevin
[*] MacGofer is no relation of MacGopher, an information retrieval
system. Remember to pronounce your 'f's correctly :-) :-)
