Re: Making Lua unique through supporting natural language texts as valid script code

[Claudio Grondi <claudio.grondi@...>]

On 10/1/23 15:19, Родион Горковенко wrote:
> Probably you'd better start with examples of "script in natural language".
>
> Natural language is a vague thing and it is difficult to reach a vague
> goal. You probably rather aim to parse something which _looks like_
> natural language but isn't it.

Let me give an example of the main idea I want to create as a proof of 
concept using Lua.
Let's prepare first some functions for later use:

> function let_x_be(val) x = tonumber(val) end
> function let_y_be(val) y = tonumber(val) end
> function let_z_be_sum_of_x_and_y ()  z = x + y end

With this functions defined, Lua already allows to write following code:

> let_x_be '0xff' _=',' let_y_be '15' _='and' let_z_be_sum_of_x_and_y''

The result of the code above is:
> x
255
> y
15
> z
270

I suppose that making in Lua possible what is possible in Python where 
it is not necessary to give a string literal a name should not brake 
anything and be not that hard to implement making then following possible:

> let_x_be '0xff' ',' let_y_be '15' 'and' let_z_be_sum_of_x_and_y''

Implementing function calls accepting beside string literals also 
numbers will then allow:

> let_x_be 0xff ',' let_y_be 15 'and' let_z_be_sum_of_x_and_y''

Going a step further allowing a dot and a comma treating them as 
whitespace if not in appropriate context and allowing function calls 
without passing any parameter will allow:

> Let_x_be 0xff 'and' let_y_be 15 . 'With x and y values set 
respectively to 255 and 15', let_z_be_sum_of_x_and_y .

This would turn Lua into a programming language making it possible to 
write code in way which reads like natural language sentences making a 
very interesting programming language out of it and the only one of this 
kind among all the others programming languages out there.

Feel free to visit the repository for a bit more background of what I 
would like to use Textadept and Lua for https://github.com/oOosys/oOo 
(being in very early stage of progress, but already with quite 
expressive and powerful guidelines). Sorry, but I am not yet fully clear 
if functions should be able to take arguments or not and if yes in which 
form ...

Claudio




> On Sun, Oct 1, 2023 at 2:42 PM Claudio Grondi <claudio.grondi@freenet.de> wrote:
> > Lua would require some minor changes only, which if I am not mistaken
> > won't break any past code and should be relatively easy to implement, in
> > order to support natural language texts as valid script code.
> >
> > May someone help me to provide proof of the concept explaining where and
> > how to modify Lua C-code in order to:
> >
> > 1.    allow ASCII values 0x02 (Start of Text) and 0x03 (End of Text) to
> > be used in script code and interpreted respectively as `[[` and `]]`
> >
> > 2.    allow function calls by specifying the function name only (without
> > using braces and without the need of passing a parameter)
> >
> > 3.    extend [_a-zA-z0-9] characters allowed in symbol names with ASCII
> > value 0x1F (Unit Separator) and `-` which will be treated like [0-9] not
> > allowed as first symbol name characters
> >
> > 4.    allow usage of unnamed strings (i.e. string literals which can be
> > specified anywhere in code without the need of assigning them to a
> > symbol) ignoring them like comments
> >
> > 5.    allow next to `;` also usage of `,` , `.` and `:`
> >
> > ?