94 lines
3.8 KiB
HTML
94 lines
3.8 KiB
HTML
<html lang="en">
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<title>Introduction - Enigma</title>
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<!--
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This manual is for Enigma, version 0.1.
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Copyright (C) 2010 Niels Serup
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Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
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document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License,
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Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software
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Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and
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no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the
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section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".
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This document is also available under the terms of the Creative
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Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 (or any later version)
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Unported license. A copy of the license is available at
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<a name="Introduction"></a>
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<p>
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Next: <a rel="next" accesskey="n" href="Language.html#Language">Language</a>,
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Previous: <a rel="previous" accesskey="p" href="index.html#Top">Top</a>,
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Up: <a rel="up" accesskey="u" href="index.html#Top">Top</a>
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<hr>
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</div>
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<h2 class="chapter">1 A short introduction</h2>
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<p>Today, in the world of programming, the commonly used programming
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languages have — to some extent — adapted the same basic
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syntax. Both C, C++, Java, Python and Ruby (and others) all share
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several paradigms, even though they are still very different. Enigma, on
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the other hand, is very different from the “common” languages. See
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this small program to get an idea of Enigma:
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<pre class="verbatim">{/a,b/
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a 2 ! multiply = c;
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b c ! add = return;
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} = odd-add;
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9 4 ! odd-add | stdout temp ! write;
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</pre>
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<p class="noindent">Here, 9 is first multiplied with 2 and then added to 4. The
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program then prints the result (22).
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<p>With only a few constructs and built-in variables, Enigma is quite small
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and relatively simple. Any logic can be expressed in Enigma. The above
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example may seem odd, but its aspects will be dealt with in the next
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chapter.
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<p>Enigma is <em>not</em> the kind of programming language that likes to
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control programmers. When programming in Enigma, one creates functions
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that call other functions — instead of creating functions that are
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called by built-in functions.
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<p>On the other hand, Enigma is very restrictive. There are limits to
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certain things. If these limits were not present, chaos would
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ensue. Perhaps.
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<p><a name="index-pointers-1"></a>Like many other languages, Enigma is quite fond of pointers. In Enigma,
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all variables are pointers. When <code>x</code> is assigned to <code>a</code>, and
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<code>b</code> is assigned to <code>a</code>, changing <code>b</code> also changes
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<code>a</code>. As a matter of fact, when two pointers points to the same
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place, they are <strong>forever</strong> linked together.
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<p>Enigma is not recommended for serious use. Use with <strong>caution</strong>!
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</body></html>
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