Talk:S-Lang

Discussion of proposed merge
I do not believe that merging the two will be useful. The programming language page is about the language. The library page is about the C library, which provides an implementation of the language. Ty8inf (talk) 00:18, 14 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Is there a second implementation of the language? Tedickey (talk) 00:48, 14 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I am aware of none. Nevertheless, both articles address different subjects and in that sense are largely orthogonal.  Merging them would serve no useful purpose.  I would argue that the Interpreter section of the library article contain a "main" tag that points to the language page. At some point I intend to expand the language article.  As it stands now, it is incomplete.  Ty8inf (talk) 02:50, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The spreading of this topic on two articles makes them confusing. It looks like they are two different things, and you have to read the article carefully to find out that they aren't (and if you land on S-Lang (programming language) you need to come here on S-Lang (programming library) to find this out and to find out more about the history of the project).


 * I disagree, they are different things. The library contains many components that have nothing to do with the programming language.  Many users of programs that embed the language, via the library, have no idea nor care that the language is implemented as part of something called the slang programmer's library.  They care only about those language features that are visible to them via the program embedding the library. And having a page devoted to that made a lot more sense than the interpreter section of the current page, which contains none of the useful content that was on the old page prior to the merge.Ty8inf (talk) 02:31, 1 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, sure they are distinct things, but you get the library for the programming language, and you use the programming language through the library, it's a 1-1 relationship that doesn't justify two separate articles (unless there were several implementations of the language, but there are not). It's only one project.


 * No, the phrase: "you get the library for the programming language", is misleading at best. A number of programs use the library and not the programming language provided by it.  For example, the library is part of most, perhaps all, base linux systems, e.g., the Debian installer uses it, but not the programming language.  In fact, a number of linux distributions contain a separate package for the interpreter portion of the library because the maintainers see the interpreter as a separate entity, and you must install additional components from the slang distribution to make use of the interpreter. Ty8inf (talk) 02:31, 1 April 2012 (UTC)


 * To take an example with a similar tool, the R (programming language) is not spread into R (software), R (library), R (GUI), R (plotting functions), etc. (there are some redirections, though).


 * In what way is R similar? Does R, the library, contain anything that has nothing to do with R, the language?  Does any program exist that uses R, the library, for anything not associated with R, the language?  If not, then there is no similarity.

Ty8inf (talk) 02:31, 1 April 2012 (UTC)


 * In other words, I support the merge. The final article should be S-Lang and present both the programming language and the library.


 * Well that is not what happened when the merge took place. Information about the interpreter was lost, as other have noted. Ty8inf (talk) 02:31, 1 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Calimo (talk) 11:46, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, the "merge" seems to have occurred, and, by the looks of the current article, I'm afraid that a lot of good information from the old S-Lang (programming language) got lost in the move. Very sad. 64.196.90.242 (talk) 15:55, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm very confused by the history of this page. Currently S-Lang (programming language) redirects to S-Lang (programming library), which tells us practically nothing about the language itself. Old versions of S-Lang (programming language) contain a description of the language and some example code–see for example this version. Why was this content removed? Would anyone object if I reverted S-Lang (programming language) back to the older and more useful version? Jowa fan (talk) 01:00, 20 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I have no objections. The merge, especially the way it was performed, was a bad idea. Ty8inf (talk) 01:54, 1 April 2012 (UTC)


 * More to the point: the topic as written does not address notability; it uses only primary sources. The likelihood of demonstrating notability is different for the library and the language (most uses are for the library's termcap-related features) TEDickey (talk) 10:08, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

"Text-based applications"
Are we talking about line mode, or full screen ones? --Jerome Potts (talk) 02:44, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Re: "the syntax has evolved to be much more C-like".
The article states "[A]lthough the original syntax supported by the interpreter resembled PostScript, the syntax has evolved to be much more C-like".

However, this is all ancient history. That C-like syntax was there by around the mid 1990's, already a quarter century ago.

Suggested wording: "within a few years, a C-like syntax was developed". KazKylheku (talk) 00:41, 11 October 2019 (UTC)


 * FWIW, the interpreter still supports stack-based programming. Here is the S-Lang version of the Fibonacci function given on the page about stack-based languages:

. fib . ( .    dup dup 1 == exch 0 == or not .     { .        dup 1 - fib .        exch 2 - fib .        + .     } if . ) fib

. 7 fib string message % produces 13 131.142.42.186 (talk) 02:16, 6 April 2021 (UTC)