Re: Contest winners

[Harry Binswanger hb@xxxxxxxx]

1. Harry Binswanger submitted XyBasic, a stand-alone programming language >that compiles to XPL in Xy III+. It's bizarre and it's wonderful -- a >language you have to learn in order to write in a language you don't want to >learn. I cut my teeth on Basic (bought or borrowed programs and took them >apart and rewrote them), so there's a nostalgia factor here. If nothing >else, Harry gets it for sheer energy and ambition. XPL is an interpreted >language, and having yet another language that compiles into an interpreted >language is -- well -- bizarre and twisted. But I say that as a compliment >given how bizarre and twisted my own programming can be! Harry has managed >to impose order on a programming system that makes "spaghetti code" look, in >comparison, like the most structured code in the universe. Do I get to make an acceptance speech? Cause if so, I want to echo Sally Field: "now I know you like me, you really like me!" Seriously, I was delighted to get some recognition for all the work I put into this thing. *I* know it's good, because I use it weekly, often daily. But no one in the Xy-savant community seemed too interested. Their attitude was: what could be simpler and more intelligible than five screenfulls of code that looks like: ≪if≪@UPR≪RC≫==≪PV292≫!≪PV08≫...? I guess another thing that I didn't realize was the extent to which BASIC is not in everyone's vocabulary. I thought it was part of the collective subconscious, but it turns out the parade has moved on. Thanks to Tim. Harry Binswanger interport.net