Cooking up a new language and need suggestions

      A while ago, as I was trying to help a friend of mine who is just
learning how to use a computer, I found that I had to explain to her
what a computer and complier were. The simplest explanation that I
could come up with her was that a complier or language's entire job
was to make it easier for a person to tell a computer how to do
something. I then tried to tell her a little of how programming
works, but inside of a few minutes, she stated that that was too
difficult that there must be an easier way. I was about to start to
argue with her, when I suddenly realized that she was right; there
probably was an easier way. And so, I've been spending the past while
trying to think up how to make programming easier, in the process
developing ideas for a new language.


      The first idea that I had is to solve a problem that I have when
writing any sort of complicated math function; I almost always lose a
paranthesis somewhere, and I have a difficult time of finding it. So
make it a requirement that all paranthesis and brackets be
autobalanced, except inside strings.


      Next thing, have the computer automatically format mathematical
functions as a person would write them, not as pure text. e.g.


sin(x)/x*cos(x) would be more like
sin(x)
------ * cos(x)
        x


(and with any luck this will come out looking the way that I meant it
to on your screen as well) This is a very simple example, but if any
of you have used any of a variety of math packages, then you know what
I'm talking about.


      I've got some other ideas as well, but they are very much in the
rough, and I'd like to hear what you've got to say before I put any
more.
---
Cem Karan
stillman@pop.mindspring.com
[I recall some languages like this from a long, long, time ago, like about
1960. -John]
--

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