varaq-wasm-c/docs/varaqfaq.html

<title>Everything you were about to ask...</title>
<h1>The <i>var'aq</i> FAQ List</h1><br>
<i>created by <a href="mailto:connorbd@yahoo.com">Brian Connors</a><br>
created 19 May 2000<br>
last updated 17 July 2000</i>
<hr>
This document attempts to answer some of the more likely questions about
<i>var'aq</i>: what it is, where to get it, where to find more about it. It's
not a tutorial or a spec; there are other documents that describe that.<p>

<ol>
<li><b>What is Var'aq?</b><p>
Var'aq (more properly, <i>var'aq</i>) is sort of a fanfic programming language
based on the Klingon language used on the <a
href="http://www.startrek.com">Star Trek</a> television series and movies.
Klingon, created by Marc Okrand and "maintained", in a sense, by the <a
href="http://www.kli.org">Klingon Language Institute</a> independently of
Paramount's auspices, is really its own separate deal; this is merely a fan's
attempt to give a little more richness to the culture as well as exercising a
love of languages and a desire to learn more Perl.<p>

<li><b>Where can I find out more about it?</b><p>

The <i>var'aq</i> home page is located at <a
href="http://www.geocities.com/connorbd/varaq">http://www.geocities.com/connorbd/varaq</a>.
You should be able to find pretty much everything interesting about the
language here, including specifications, sample code, and implementation
notes. <p>

As of this writing, the interpreter is in a basically functional state but
implements less than half of the specification. Just something you should keep
in mind.<p>

<li><b>I heard something
about a "Klingon Forth". Is this it? And why isn't it called
<i>loSDIch</i>?</b><p>
Yes, in a way. It's a stack-based RPN language like Forth or PostScript; the
reason for this has nothing to do with an original desire to emulate one of
those languages, but simply the unusual object-verb-subject syntax of Klingon.
This sort of dictated the required form of the language right up front, ruling
out a more traditional ALGOL-like syntax (based on English). Stack-based
languages are actually easier to parse anyway, especially in Perl: just chomp
and process. It is also an impure functional language in the same vein as
Lisp or ML; it supports local variables, but it is really intended to do
everything off the stack.<p>

As for calling it <i>loSDIch</i> (Klingon for <i>fourth</i>), that would be an
obvious joke title to anyone who actually spoke Klingon; this being at least
a semi-serious exercise in artificial culture development, such a title would
be noticeably silly at best. <i>var'aq</i> is actually completely meaningless,
though it suggests identification with a famous Klingon mathematician or
computer scientist in sort of the same way as Pascal recalls Blaise Pascal or
Ada recalls Ada Lovelace. In any case, the name <i>var'aq</i> came before the form of the
language. (In any case, <i>var'aq</i> is based more directly on
PostScript anyway. But they're all part of the same family.)<p>

<li><b>So what is this thing eventually going to be able to
do?</b><p>

Eventually? A lot. The intent is to offer such things as concurrency and even
distributed processing support at some point (imagine that, a toy language
designed for a Beowulf cluster), perhaps even basic windowing support or the
like. Right now, I'm just shooting for such fancy features as, say,
functions. Or loops. String support. That sort of thing.<p>

<li><b>Describe <i>var'aq</i> for me in terms
of other languages. You know, like a car or a beer or something like
that.</b><p>
As stated above, <i>var'aq</i>'s closest cyberlinguistic relative is probably
PostScript, with a dash of Lisp thrown in. (This, incidentally, is sort of a
Perl artifact, since Perl data typing is incredibly lax. It's just the easiest
way to write it.) <p>

Chris Pressey, creator of the notorious Befunge language,
maintains a list of programming languages described as cars; in those terms,
<i>var'aq</i> would be described thusly: <i>A 2000 VW Turbo Beetle with lots
of amateurishly drawn Star Trek graphics painted 60s-style on the doors, a
Starfleet Academy sticker in the window, and a custom car radio and A/C system
run completely off an HP calculator.</i><p>

In terms of genetics, <i>var'aq</i> is the bastard child of a back-room tryst
between PostScript and Lisp after a Star Trek convention.<p>

In terms of beer... <i>var'aq</i> is bloodwine. Serve hot, drink carefully
because it'll mess you up if you don't.<p>

There is a <i>var'aq</i> 99 Bottles Of Beer program, but since it won't yet
parse I won't be posting it right yet.<p>

<li><b>Why doesn't this construct translate to its PostScript/Forth
equivalent?</b><p>

The question is one of verisimilitude. The likelihood of a Klingon concept
being an exact translation of its English equivalent isn't always good.
Consequently, pure translation of an Earth language might make for a cute
joke, but it would sacrifice plausibility. A prime example is the
<i>qaw/qawHa'</i> instructions, which perform the same function as
PostScript's <i>mark/cleartomark</i> instructions but literally translate
to <i>remember/forget</i>; the idea is that the metaphor chosen in Klingon
might more reflect the purpose of marking the stack than the actual act.
Incidentally, It's quite true that many of the idioms chosen for
<i>var'aq</i> are
anything but obvious. This is the reason why; though mathematics is
considered universal, it's not too likely that everything would be
described in the same way. (That said, I did cheat in a few places; for
example, the word for logarithm is a direct translation from the Greek
<i>logarithmos</i>, meaning roughly "logic-number".) <p>


For a rather thorough and creative discussion on the issues involved
in translation, you might wish to look at <i>Le ton beau de Marot</i> by
Douglas Hofstadter (the author of the hacker classic <i>Goedel, Escher,
Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid</i>), an intricate and well-written look at
the pitfalls of translation between languages. <p>


<li><b>Does Paramount know about this?</b><p>

Not until someone sends me Michael Okuda's email address. (NB Michael Okuda is
the visual effects guy that created the modern Starfleet look and feel. I
think he'd be interested, but I make no assumptions about officialdom.)<p>

<li><b>Does the KLI know about this?</b><p>

As a matter of fact, yes. <a href="mailto:mark@kli.org">Mark
Shoulson</a> is the project's Head Linguistic Consultant and is in
great measure responsible for getting the spec to reflect real Klingon
constructions.<p>

<li><b>Why isn't the Klingon version guaranteed to be in sync with the English
version?</b><p>

Good question. The answer is that I don't speak Klingon; as a linguistic work
of art, it's a beauty, but I don't have much reason to learn it. As a result,
the Klingon version is mechanically translated via a Perl filter from English
to Klingon so I don't have to waste time synchronizing two separate source
bases.<p>

<li><b>Will there ever be...</b><p>

<ul>
<li><b>...a <i>var'aq</i>-to-C compiler?</b><p>

Not likely. Such a beast would essentially spew out function calls to simulate
<i>var'aq</i> operators and control structures and would therefore be a
gigantic mess.<p>

<li><b>...a version not written in Perl?</b><p>

Eventually, mainly because I'd love to get this running on a PalmPilot. The
Perl implementation is phenomenally ugly anyway, so a serious rewrite in C
would definitely be in order at some point. Some might, for example,
actually find <i>var'aq</i> useful for the occasional scripting job, and
running an interpreter on an interpreter is if nothing else a great way to
waste tremendous amounts of time.<p>

<li><b>...a non-Unix version?</b><p>

<i>var'aq</i> should run as is on any platform that can handle Perl. Mac,
Unix, Windows, whatever. Next question.<p>

</ul>

<li><b>Who is responsible for this?</b><p>

The principal members of the team as of this version of the FAQ are: <p>
<ul>
<li><a href="mailto:connorbd@yahoo.com">Brian Connors</a> -- Brian created
the
concept and is currently doing most of the implementation work and
documentation. He's mostly a Perl-Linux-MacOS hacker and is currently
available for employment; see his <a
href="http://www.geocities.com/connorbd/resume3.html">resume</a> if you're
looking. He also considers himself something of an <a
href="http://www.opensource.org">Open Source</a> activist and considers
<i>var'aq</i> his most worthwhile contribution to the movement so far.

<li><a href="http://www.catseye.mb.ca">Chris Pressey</a> --
Chris
knocked around a number of ideas for the <i>var'aq</i> system in the early
planning stages of the project and provided the first draft of Bearfood, a
very, very small Forth interpreter in Perl that provided the guts of the
procedure definition code. Chris' biggest area of expertise is pushing
the frontiers of programming language design; check out his <a
href="http://www.catseye.mb.ca/esoteric">Cat's Eye Technologies Esoteric
Topics</a> web page if you'd like to see some of his better-known work
(especially Befunge, a language that may have displaced Intercal as one
of the most perverse in existence). 

<li><a href="mailto:mark@kli.org">Mark
Shoulson</a> -- One
of the higher-ranking members of the <a href="http://www.kli.org">Klingon
Language Institute</a>, Mark, being the only one of us who actually speaks
Klingon, is our linguistics consultant. His role so far has been making
sure that the Klingon words in the spec actually mean what they're
supposed to mean, a job important enough that he gets coauthor credit with
Brian and Chris.
</ul>

Shouts out go to j proctor and Alan Anderson from the <i>varaq-dev</i>
mailing list for their contributions as well.
<p>

<li><b>Can I copy/borrow <i>var'aq</i>?</b><p>

The spec is as open as any such spec gets. Feel free to implement your
own; if you want to use our code it's freeware under the <a
href="http://www.mozilla.org">Mozilla Public License</a> (Why not GPL?
That's a <a
href="http://www.geocities.com/connorbd/stallman.html">separate
document</a>...). As mentioned above, Brian's heavy into that open source
thing, so naturally in peer review we trust. Of course, you should
acknowledge us, and we'd obviously love a cut of anything you happen to 
make off our work...<p>

<li><b>Where can I find out more about <i>var'aq</i>?</b><p>

You can go to the <a
href="http://www.geocities.com/connorbd/varaq"><i>var'aq</i> home page</a>
at Yahoo! Geocities to find out everything there is to know about
<i>var'aq</i>. At the website, you'll find all sorts of useful information
(most of which is included with the distribution) as well as instructions
for subscribing to the <code>varaq-dev</code> mailing list at <a
href="http://www.egroups.com">eGroups</a>. Good lu...er... Qapla'!

</ol>
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