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[DaveP]

Finally you too can get hold of the VIC - nearly a decade in the making and much discussed and beloved of comp.sys.amiga.misc:

Virtual Interaction Configuration ( VIC )

You need to "log in" to get to the download area.

Now we can all see there is no spoon

[Quixote]

DaveP declared:

Finally you too can get hold of the VIC - nearly a decade in the making and much discussed and beloved of comp.sys.amiga.misc:

:-? Would you like to drop a hint or two for the rest of us? What does V.I.C. do?

[buzz]

Would you like to drop a hint or two for the rest of us? What does V.I.C. do?

:-D

The VIC is a solution, it is the fundamental tool set of required
functionality. Like the primary colors, where from them you can create the
rest of the spectrum. But the VIC is not as simple as the primary colors
because it deals with a subject matter a bit more complex than colors. In
it's simplest form it is a shell of JUST NINE COMMANDS. Not as complex as
csh (or 4dos in the IBM world) in programming or application creation but
with versatility that far exceeds programs like AWK.
To fully understand the solution, one must understand the problem the
solution addresses. To understand the problem, one must first see the
problem. Most don't fully see the problem but only small facets of it or
symptoms of the problem.

and then some waffle about dishonesty.

thats what the vic was in 1997.. whether it still is the same, i dont know. :-)

[DaveP]

I have NO idea what the VIC *IS*, given that no one
has been able to get its author to successfully explain it without being subject to personal abuse
I doubt anyone will ever know.

The VIC was written originally in AREXX by Tim Rue
and from what I can gather it was supposed to be
a means of pipelining various verbs together ( move,
push etc ) into a system automation language.

In fact, you could consider it a re-invention of
assembly language.

[alx]

There is a list of the nine commands at the bottom of this page. I'm still very confused; it's full of stuff like this:

AI (Alternate Interface) - You start or begin things and stop or end things. In doing so, you change what you are interfacing with

or

SF (Sequence StufF) - You do things a step at a time, even when your doing more than one thing at a time, each you do a step at a time. And the things you do can be or include doing the nine things.

And that is what the author calls the "basics" :-) Sound more like philosophy to me :-?

[The_Editor]

[Bodie]

It's a program about nothing .

[Kay]

> What does V.I.C. do?

It confuses people.

Kay

[T_Bone]

Bodie wrote:

It's a program about nothing .

ROFL!

[alx]

The nine commands are apparently meant to cover everything that you could ever want to do - and the idea is for programs to write themselves or something like that. Take a look at this thread and prepare to be confused. Everything that Tim Rue writes seems to end up really complex - just look at the main VIC page. Oh, and don't forget VIC basics - some hint of sarcasm in that title perhaps? :-?

[DaveP]

He does have a point though, it is possible to reduce
instruction sets down to a small subset but those commands
(verbs) tend to end up having a gadzillion options and parameters
on them to cope with all the different semantic situations
they have to address.

If you assumed that programming was all about doing
incredibly high level things ( move that data from here
to here ) then you might end up with the VIC. But it is
a naive model - not least because the amount of underlying
abstraction layer coding to achieve it would rely on so
many assumptions it would be near impossible to apply
in all circumstances.

The biggest problem with programming languages is
achieving one that is easy to use, simple to understand
and difficult to phuck up on. Seems to me VIC does not
address any of those.

Meta-programming languages ( those that describe how a program
should work and code-gen the implementation ) have been
around donkeys years but whenever you point this out to
Tim he goes around accusing them of plaigarism ( IBM, Sun,
OMG ), piracy, breach of IP and the person who points it out
of trolling.

But seeings it took nearly a decade to get this far I doubt
that the next upgrade will come any time soon.

Tim, I *think* has good ideas but he is totally unable to
articulate them or even flesh them out.

[mikeymike]

Please don't encourage the Rue to come here! That's why I avoid amiga newsgroups...

[redrumloa]

Everything that Tim Rue writes seems to end up really complex

Tim is either a genius on an entirely other level than the rest of us, or he is completely insane ;-)

if he's a genius whats his claim to fame? was he a big C= guy or what?....I dont know anything about the dude.
and why could he be insane?...

[Madgun68]

if he's a genius whats his claim to fame? was he a big C= guy or what?....I dont know anything about the dude.
and why could he be insane?...

Try reading through some of the stuff on his website. IMO, most people would wind up mad before they ever understood it.