WWW; The Name of the Game

[pdmosses@brics.dk]

WWW

I just noticed that all the grammar productions in the WWW version of
v0.93 of the language summary were wrongly-formatted, due to a silly
mistake that I made when converting to HTML.  Sorry about that; it has
now been corrected.  (The files formatted for printing are unchanged.)


NAMES

New proposals for the name of the CoFI language (family) have been
received this week from:

CC>  From: Christine.Choppy@irin.univ-nantes.fr (Christine Choppy)
BKB> From: bkb@Informatik.Uni-Bremen.DE (Bernd Krieg-Brueckner)
DTS> From: Don Sannella <dts@dcs.ed.ac.uk>
TBD> From: Dinesh <T.B.Dinesh@cwi.nl>
>    From: pdmosses@brics.dk

They are as follows:

CC> >However, one cannot have an anonymous language!  Unfortunately (?)
CC> >none of the current proposals for the name/acronym have met with much
CC> >general enthusiasm...  The constraints are that the explanation of the
CC> >acronym should include the words "common" and "algebraic" - preferably
CC> >also "specification" and "language".
CC> 
CC> well, this may turn to: CASL ...= Common Algebraic Specification Language
CC> (and sounds like "castle"...)

>I'm now wondering why I never thought of that!  Thank you.
>
>Perhaps CASL could be the name of the language family, then we could
>use FO-CASL (pronounced like "forecastle"!) for the central language,
>HI-CASL for the higher-order extension, etc.?

CC> >  Alcol,  CoFI-Light,  Black CoFI,  Coal,  Coala,  Class,  Focal.
CC> I don't like Alcol and Black CoFI (sounds too muchlike a drink)
CC> I don't like Class (to close to the OO jargon)
CC> Coal neither (black and dirty)
CC> so this leaves otherwise:
CC> 
CC> CoFI-Light, Coala, Focal
CC> 
CC> and CASL or CAStLe ...

BKB> My vote is for (in order):
BKB> CoFI (with some adjectives, such as Black; what happened to Ground?)
BKB> Class
BKB> Coala (perhaps)
BKB> 
BKB> against:
BKB> Alcol (too close to Algol and Alcohol)
BKB> anything with Light (I am sick of this)
BKB> Focal (OK, but not good with adjectives)

DTS> Another not-very-good suggestion for a name:
DTS> 
DTS> 	Common Ground
DTS> or maybe
DTS> 	Common Grounds
DTS> 
DTS> Of course, ground/grounds as in ground coffee, or coffee grounds
DTS> (= what is left over when the good stuff is taken away :-).
DTS> 
DTS> This doesn't meet the constraints ("algebraic", "specification",
DTS> "language" not mentioned).

TBD> How about?
TBD> 
TBD> CoFI CoLA
TBD>   Common Framework Initiative's
TBD>   Common Language for Algebraic-Specifications.
TBD> 
TBD> CoLA would be the release version of CoLa-X
TBD>   X - the first ground CoFI Common Language for Algebraic Specifications.
TBD> 
TBD>   ...
TBD> 
TBD> Or how about?
TBD> 
TBD> CoFI ChiLD or XLD (say it as child)
TBD>   Chi is the $\chi$ and stands for X, and
TBD>   LD is for Language Definition.
TBD>   (think it as the brain child due to CoFI)
TBD>  
TBD>   Then in future one can talk about ChiLD 0, ChiLD 1, ...
TBD>   and the Language implementations could ofcourse be referred to as
TBD>   ChiLI (say it as chilli and think it as hot-stuff).

Thanks to all the above for their proposals.

Personally, my current favourite is CASL, as it is nice and snappy,
and has mostly good connotations, e.g., large, strong, long-lasting,
easy to defend, prestigious, lots of related parts...  (but perhaps
some think we're building castles in the air, or sandcastles).  If
you don't like abbreviated qualifiers as in FO-CASL and HI-CASL, one
might use e.g. Middle-CASL, Higher-CASL.

However, it would be nice to get an impression of a consensus on
this important issue.  Please continue to send proposals (or "votes")
to cofi-language@brics.dk.  Unless a clear winner emerges soon, those
attending the Edinburgh meetings will be asked to make the choice
themselves (so it may well then end up as "MALT", with "Blended
MALT" obviously being the central language, "Highland MALT", etc. :-).
Of course "CASL" might also be a popular choice in Edinburgh...

Have a nice weekend!

Peter

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\  /  | Peter D Mosses         <pdmosses@brics.dk> |
CoFI  | Common Framework Initiative  - Coordinator |
/  \  | WWW URL: http://www.brics.dk/Projects/CoFI |
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