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233 lines
11 KiB
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<title>Everything you were about to ask...</title>
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<h1>The <i>var'aq</i> FAQ List</h1><br>
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<i>created by <a href="mailto:connorbd@yahoo.com">Brian Connors</a><br>
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created 19 May 2000<br>
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last updated 17 July 2000</i>
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<hr>
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This document attempts to answer some of the more likely questions about
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<i>var'aq</i>: what it is, where to get it, where to find more about it. It's
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not a tutorial or a spec; there are other documents that describe that.<p>
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<ol>
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<li><b>What is Var'aq?</b><p>
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Var'aq (more properly, <i>var'aq</i>) is sort of a fanfic programming language
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based on the Klingon language used on the <a
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href="http://www.startrek.com">Star Trek</a> television series and movies.
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Klingon, created by Marc Okrand and "maintained", in a sense, by the <a
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href="http://www.kli.org">Klingon Language Institute</a> independently of
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Paramount's auspices, is really its own separate deal; this is merely a fan's
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attempt to give a little more richness to the culture as well as exercising a
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love of languages and a desire to learn more Perl.<p>
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<li><b>Where can I find out more about it?</b><p>
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The <i>var'aq</i> home page is located at <a
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href="http://www.geocities.com/connorbd/varaq">http://www.geocities.com/connorbd/varaq</a>.
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You should be able to find pretty much everything interesting about the
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language here, including specifications, sample code, and implementation
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notes. <p>
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As of this writing, the interpreter is in a basically functional state but
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implements less than half of the specification. Just something you should keep
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in mind.<p>
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<li><b>I heard something
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about a "Klingon Forth". Is this it? And why isn't it called
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<i>loSDIch</i>?</b><p>
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Yes, in a way. It's a stack-based RPN language like Forth or PostScript; the
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reason for this has nothing to do with an original desire to emulate one of
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those languages, but simply the unusual object-verb-subject syntax of Klingon.
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This sort of dictated the required form of the language right up front, ruling
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out a more traditional ALGOL-like syntax (based on English). Stack-based
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languages are actually easier to parse anyway, especially in Perl: just chomp
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and process. It is also an impure functional language in the same vein as
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Lisp or ML; it supports local variables, but it is really intended to do
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everything off the stack.<p>
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As for calling it <i>loSDIch</i> (Klingon for <i>fourth</i>), that would be an
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obvious joke title to anyone who actually spoke Klingon; this being at least
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a semi-serious exercise in artificial culture development, such a title would
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be noticeably silly at best. <i>var'aq</i> is actually completely meaningless,
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though it suggests identification with a famous Klingon mathematician or
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computer scientist in sort of the same way as Pascal recalls Blaise Pascal or
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Ada recalls Ada Lovelace. In any case, the name <i>var'aq</i> came before the form of the
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language. (In any case, <i>var'aq</i> is based more directly on
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PostScript anyway. But they're all part of the same family.)<p>
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<li><b>So what is this thing eventually going to be able to
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do?</b><p>
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Eventually? A lot. The intent is to offer such things as concurrency and even
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distributed processing support at some point (imagine that, a toy language
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designed for a Beowulf cluster), perhaps even basic windowing support or the
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like. Right now, I'm just shooting for such fancy features as, say,
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functions. Or loops. String support. That sort of thing.<p>
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<li><b>Describe <i>var'aq</i> for me in terms
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of other languages. You know, like a car or a beer or something like
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that.</b><p>
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As stated above, <i>var'aq</i>'s closest cyberlinguistic relative is probably
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PostScript, with a dash of Lisp thrown in. (This, incidentally, is sort of a
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Perl artifact, since Perl data typing is incredibly lax. It's just the easiest
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way to write it.) <p>
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Chris Pressey, creator of the notorious Befunge language,
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maintains a list of programming languages described as cars; in those terms,
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<i>var'aq</i> would be described thusly: <i>A 2000 VW Turbo Beetle with lots
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of amateurishly drawn Star Trek graphics painted 60s-style on the doors, a
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Starfleet Academy sticker in the window, and a custom car radio and A/C system
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run completely off an HP calculator.</i><p>
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In terms of genetics, <i>var'aq</i> is the bastard child of a back-room tryst
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between PostScript and Lisp after a Star Trek convention.<p>
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In terms of beer... <i>var'aq</i> is bloodwine. Serve hot, drink carefully
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because it'll mess you up if you don't.<p>
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There is a <i>var'aq</i> 99 Bottles Of Beer program, but since it won't yet
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parse I won't be posting it right yet.<p>
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<li><b>Why doesn't this construct translate to its PostScript/Forth
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equivalent?</b><p>
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The question is one of verisimilitude. The likelihood of a Klingon concept
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being an exact translation of its English equivalent isn't always good.
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Consequently, pure translation of an Earth language might make for a cute
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joke, but it would sacrifice plausibility. A prime example is the
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<i>qaw/qawHa'</i> instructions, which perform the same function as
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PostScript's <i>mark/cleartomark</i> instructions but literally translate
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to <i>remember/forget</i>; the idea is that the metaphor chosen in Klingon
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might more reflect the purpose of marking the stack than the actual act.
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Incidentally, It's quite true that many of the idioms chosen for
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<i>var'aq</i> are
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anything but obvious. This is the reason why; though mathematics is
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considered universal, it's not too likely that everything would be
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described in the same way. (That said, I did cheat in a few places; for
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example, the word for logarithm is a direct translation from the Greek
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<i>logarithmos</i>, meaning roughly "logic-number".) <p>
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For a rather thorough and creative discussion on the issues involved
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in translation, you might wish to look at <i>Le ton beau de Marot</i> by
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Douglas Hofstadter (the author of the hacker classic <i>Goedel, Escher,
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Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid</i>), an intricate and well-written look at
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the pitfalls of translation between languages. <p>
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<li><b>Does Paramount know about this?</b><p>
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Not until someone sends me Michael Okuda's email address. (NB Michael Okuda is
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the visual effects guy that created the modern Starfleet look and feel. I
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think he'd be interested, but I make no assumptions about officialdom.)<p>
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<li><b>Does the KLI know about this?</b><p>
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As a matter of fact, yes. <a href="mailto:mark@kli.org">Mark
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Shoulson</a> is the project's Head Linguistic Consultant and is in
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great measure responsible for getting the spec to reflect real Klingon
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constructions.<p>
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<li><b>Why isn't the Klingon version guaranteed to be in sync with the English
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version?</b><p>
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Good question. The answer is that I don't speak Klingon; as a linguistic work
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of art, it's a beauty, but I don't have much reason to learn it. As a result,
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the Klingon version is mechanically translated via a Perl filter from English
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to Klingon so I don't have to waste time synchronizing two separate source
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bases.<p>
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<li><b>Will there ever be...</b><p>
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<ul>
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<li><b>...a <i>var'aq</i>-to-C compiler?</b><p>
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Not likely. Such a beast would essentially spew out function calls to simulate
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<i>var'aq</i> operators and control structures and would therefore be a
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gigantic mess.<p>
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<li><b>...a version not written in Perl?</b><p>
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Eventually, mainly because I'd love to get this running on a PalmPilot. The
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Perl implementation is phenomenally ugly anyway, so a serious rewrite in C
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would definitely be in order at some point. Some might, for example,
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actually find <i>var'aq</i> useful for the occasional scripting job, and
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running an interpreter on an interpreter is if nothing else a great way to
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waste tremendous amounts of time.<p>
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<li><b>...a non-Unix version?</b><p>
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<i>var'aq</i> should run as is on any platform that can handle Perl. Mac,
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Unix, Windows, whatever. Next question.<p>
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</ul>
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<li><b>Who is responsible for this?</b><p>
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The principal members of the team as of this version of the FAQ are: <p>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="mailto:connorbd@yahoo.com">Brian Connors</a> -- Brian created
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the
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concept and is currently doing most of the implementation work and
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documentation. He's mostly a Perl-Linux-MacOS hacker and is currently
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available for employment; see his <a
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href="http://www.geocities.com/connorbd/resume3.html">resume</a> if you're
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looking. He also considers himself something of an <a
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href="http://www.opensource.org">Open Source</a> activist and considers
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<i>var'aq</i> his most worthwhile contribution to the movement so far.
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<li><a href="http://www.catseye.mb.ca">Chris Pressey</a> --
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Chris
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knocked around a number of ideas for the <i>var'aq</i> system in the early
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planning stages of the project and provided the first draft of Bearfood, a
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very, very small Forth interpreter in Perl that provided the guts of the
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procedure definition code. Chris' biggest area of expertise is pushing
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the frontiers of programming language design; check out his <a
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href="http://www.catseye.mb.ca/esoteric">Cat's Eye Technologies Esoteric
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Topics</a> web page if you'd like to see some of his better-known work
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(especially Befunge, a language that may have displaced Intercal as one
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of the most perverse in existence).
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<li><a href="mailto:mark@kli.org">Mark
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Shoulson</a> -- One
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of the higher-ranking members of the <a href="http://www.kli.org">Klingon
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Language Institute</a>, Mark, being the only one of us who actually speaks
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Klingon, is our linguistics consultant. His role so far has been making
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sure that the Klingon words in the spec actually mean what they're
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supposed to mean, a job important enough that he gets coauthor credit with
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Brian and Chris.
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</ul>
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Shouts out go to j proctor and Alan Anderson from the <i>varaq-dev</i>
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mailing list for their contributions as well.
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<p>
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<li><b>Can I copy/borrow <i>var'aq</i>?</b><p>
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The spec is as open as any such spec gets. Feel free to implement your
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own; if you want to use our code it's freeware under the <a
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href="http://www.mozilla.org">Mozilla Public License</a> (Why not GPL?
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That's a <a
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href="http://www.geocities.com/connorbd/stallman.html">separate
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document</a>...). As mentioned above, Brian's heavy into that open source
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thing, so naturally in peer review we trust. Of course, you should
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acknowledge us, and we'd obviously love a cut of anything you happen to
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make off our work...<p>
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<li><b>Where can I find out more about <i>var'aq</i>?</b><p>
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You can go to the <a
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href="http://www.geocities.com/connorbd/varaq"><i>var'aq</i> home page</a>
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at Yahoo! Geocities to find out everything there is to know about
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<i>var'aq</i>. At the website, you'll find all sorts of useful information
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(most of which is included with the distribution) as well as instructions
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for subscribing to the <code>varaq-dev</code> mailing list at <a
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href="http://www.egroups.com">eGroups</a>. Good lu...er... Qapla'!
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</ol>
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<hr>
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Click <a href="index.html">here</a> to return to the <i>var'aq</i> home
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page.<br>
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Click <a href="http://www.geocities.com/connorbd">here</a> to return to
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2266 Research Triangle.
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