Thanks for the further information.
john duncan <agley@optusnet.com.au> writes:
> Hi Aaron,
> I got the 20 MB tarball from Birmingham.I ran the
> scripts that you provide but it took me a while to figure out that I
> needed the C-shell,not usually on Debian.
Ah: I thought all unix/linux systems included either tcsh or csh,
and in the former case then csh is usually just a link to tcsh.
Does debian not include tcsh either?
I guess I should rewrite the scripts to use sh/bash, though I never
use bash myself.
> It wasn't obvious until I read the script that
> install_package needed an arg.
This is specified in
INSTALL-OPTIONS.txt
But there are too many instruction files, covering lots of different
cases or sub-cases and it's hard to take everything in.
I'll make install_package should check and print out a message.
> On Debian some of the links needed are
> made when the motif-clients and termcap-compat packages are added but I
> had to make,
>
> ln -s /usr/X11R6/lib/libXm.so.2.1 /usr/X11R6/lib/libXm.so
The link from libXm.so exists on some Redhat systems and not others,
and it seems that not all the packaged versions of openmotif make
the link. The need to check this is mentioned in one of the
(probably too confusing) instruction files: AREADME.motifcheck.txt
perhaps I should put the instruction files in a sub-directory called
docs, with a simple README file saying "read them".
> ln -s /lib/libtermcap.so.2.0.8 /lib/libtermcap.so
Likewise.
> I go into this detail in case other Debian users look
> here for help.
This is not peculiar to Debian. There don't seem to be universal
conventions about how to install .so libraries.
> I can see that startup.psv but still am having trouble
> loading it from the command line.
By default the installation scripts should have created
/usr/local/bin/poplog
as a link to this executable
/usr/local/poplog/local/setup/bin/poplog
Then you should be able to give commands like
poplog pop11
poplog ved foo
poplog xved foo
poplog prolog
etc.
That will invoke the $poplocalbin/startup.psv file as needed.
However always typing 'poplog' can be a pain. So you can instead
if running tcsh/csh do
source /usr/local/bin/poplog
or if running bash do
source /usr/local/poplog/local/setup/bin/poplog.sh
or
. /usr/lcoal/poplog/local/setup/bin/poplog.sh
And then you'll have your environment variables set for running
poplog and you can just give the commands
pop11
ved
etc.
That last command can go into your .bashrc file so that it is always
run when you log in, though if you don't often use poplog you may
not wish to have the overhead of always setting the environment
variables.
> I will get there when I figure out how
> I want to set my evironment up,
I hope the above indicates the options.
> I might shift it to /home/agley yet.
> I will probably try it on OpenBSD as well when I get a
> bit more used to it, perhaps under Linux emulation.
I don't know if anyone else has tried that. But from what I
understand of OpenBSD it should work.
> As to why I want to learn programming,mainly to learn to
> think for myself again.
That's a good enough reason. I think that amazing educational
opportunities are being lost in schools. Kids are being taught to
browse the internet, run word processors, and use packages of
various sorts. Much of this produces what looks like action but
is essentially passive (mouse potatoes replace couch potatoes).
If instead they were taught programming, including how to specify,
design, implement, document, test, debug, analyse, describe,
explain, and compare programs then they would really be learning
something powerful. We need to base education on the "Five Rs"
(Reading, writing, arithmetic and programming).
But most educationalists don't understand this, most school
teachers would be too frightened, and children and parents don't
know what they are missing.
> After many years in the same job even though
> interesting I found myself relying on others and buying a computer in
> 1999 woke me up after I became dissatisfied with Windows and decided to
> bite the bullet and install OpenBSD which I found made you think for
> yourself, same as Debian.
> Why I picked poplog I don't know yet but list processing
> attracted me and a bit of lurking around the Clisp community turned me
> off them. You shouldn't get too many questions from me, I will be doing
> it the hard way,time is no object.
For an introduction to list processing read:
Chapter 6 of the Primer
TEACH BOXES
(lists represented by little boxes)
TEACH WAL
(what are lists: goes down to a lower level)
TEACH MATCHES
TEACH MATCHARROW
TEACH LISTSUMMARY
Similar to chapter 6 of the Primer)
TEACH RESPOND
TEACH DATABASE
TEACH RIVER
TEACH RIVER2
TEACH RIVERCHAT
TEACH DIARY
TEACH SETS
TEACH SETS2
If you can solve the subculture problem in an elegant way
you are a programmer
TEACH RECURSION
After doing
"uses newkit"
TEACH RULEBASE
TEACH POPRULEBASE
TEACH SEARCHING
That can take you between a few weeks and a year, depending on
how much time you have and how your mind works.
There are many other directions in which you can go within the pop-11
framework, e.g. natural language processing, object oriented
programming, agent programming (including simulated robots), image
analysis and interpretation, planning, problem-solving, graphics, neural
nets, evolutionary computation, functional programming (as in Scheme)
and more .....
The available teaching materials are not equally good in all areas: one
way in which pop-11 needs more work.
The reference documentation is much more thorough, but hard for a
beginner to read. It is to be found in various ref directories,
supplemented by help directories, e.g.
$usepop/pop/ref
$usepop/pop/help
$usepop/pop/x/pop/ref
$usepop/pop/x/pop/help
$usepop/pop/lib/objectclass/ref/
$usepop/pop/lib/objectclass/help/
There's more information about the structure of the poplog
directory tree in this file
$usepop/pop/doc/sysspec
Which you can read into Ved/Xved with the command
ENTER doc sysspec
It's probably now incomplete.
Have fun. And post your questions and comments. There are
others who can help.
Aaron
====
Aaron Sloman, ( http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/ )
School of Computer Science, The University of Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK
EMAIL A.Sloman AT cs.bham.ac.uk (ReadATas@please !)
PAPERS: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/cogaff/ (And free book on Philosophy of AI)
FREE TOOLS: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/poplog/freepoplog.html
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