CATHOL The Programming Language of the Future

First:

Cathol does exist.

And second:

All the benchmarks and data presented here are genuine.

This is part of the fun! It is a silly thing to invent a programming language and publish fictitious stuff about it (everybody can do that), but to invent it, implement it and test it - that is really amusing.

"Fun is a serious thing." (Terry Pratchett)

And oh yes, this page has nothing to do with either the Roman Catholic or the Catholic Apostolic church - time-honoured and respectable institutions. Though I'd suggested using it for applets and SSIs on the web page of the Order of St. Raphael (which I myself belong to), if we should ever have one. ;-)

Cathol is not an "obfuscated" or "weird" language in the sense of Intercal, Malbogle, Brainfuck or Befunge which were written just for the purpose of demonstrating that there will always be yet another (and probably more imbecile) way to skin a rabbit. Apart from currently having a very small library (console I/O, string handling and mathematics, but no file handling yet), it possesses all features of a general-purpose language, with generally utilizable data types and control structures. The syntax and semantics allow the writing of well-structured and legible programs. ...Well, at any rate Cathol programs do not comprise horrors like #define varp_from_x( x, t ) ( (t)==c_VInt ? &(IVartab[(x)]) : ((t)==c_VReal ? &(RVartab[(x)]) : &(SVartab[(x)])) )!

When attempting to classify Cathol in terms of conventional languages, we can describe it as follows: It is

• imperative,
• procedural,
• not object-oriented,
• strongly typed,
• interpreted.

In many respects, its structure resembles that of COMAL, but who in turn knows what that looks like? The most striking feature of Cathol is that it is not based on the English language. So far, there are only two other languages for which this holds true: APL, which uses hieroglyphic signs, and Logo, which is available in both English and "localized" versions. Cathol, on the other hand, is based on the Latin language, which was considered to be much more appropriate for a computer language. Therefore, it does not fit any established linguistic category.

A code sample follows:

Latin was chosen for a number of reasons:

We have had "business oriented" languages more than enough... the time is ripe for a language which takes into account our rich cultural heritage. Latin is the traditional language of scholars, philosophers and scientists (in Europe). Unlike English, whose grammar is defined largely as its own absence, Latin is based on a set of rigidly defined rules. These allow for easy and brief definition even of complicated matters (try to translate the phrase illuminando redde from the example above into English, then count the words!). It is a language that "belongs to" no one and hence cannot be abused in any attempt to demonstrate supremacy of one nation over another. It also promotes peace and liberty throughout the world. Some of my best friends are dictators, and only very few of them speak Latin. And finally, programmers who wear cowboy boots usually also don't know it and don't want it.

Variables:

• Data types:

  Cathol supports three data types: integers, floats and strings. As in BASIC or PERL, types are designated by prefixes: % (or nothing) for integers, ! for floats and $ for strings. Hence, no declaration is required.

  An integer is a 32-bit integer, or whatever value has been chosen during compilation of the Cathol interpreter. Logical values are special instaces of integers - 0 is "false" and all other values are "true". Therefore, comparisons (using EQUALIS, INEQUALIS, MAIOR, MINOR, MAIEQU and MINEQU) are just operations like +, - and so on.

  A float is a C float or double value.

  A string is any sequence of up to 255 ASCII characters. Unicode is for ninnies.

  All three types are freely interconvertible. That is to say, a string may be used as an integer or a real (then it is sscanfed internally to yield a numeric value), an integer may be used as a string (then it is sprintfed intenally) or a real (the easiest conversion), and a real may be used as a string or an int (then it is rounded). The phrase "3"+4 is perfectly legal in Cathol. Whether this is evaluated to "34" or to 7 depends on the variable to which it is to be evaluated: If it is a string variable, the expression is evaluated to yield a string; if it is numeric, the expression is evaluated to yield a numeric value. You may even write: FIAT !float "3"+4 and get 7.0000000.

  There are no structured data types. (They are only for quiche eaters anyway, aren't they? Folks who speak the language of the Caesars don't tinker with such gimmicks.)

  There is no := (Pascal), <- (ML) or = (C) operator; instead, assignments are done using the command FIAT, similar to SETQ in LISP or LET in some older BASICs.

• Arrays and attributes: This is one of the few parts of the language which I have not implemented yet. Arrays will be created and removed using the ALLOCA and DISPONE commands, and access will be possible with the commands COLLOCA and PREHENDE. Attributes (from LISP) will be set and got with INSTRUE and VIDE.

Flow control:

There are no indentations required, but Cathol permits only one command per line.

• Conditions: A conditional expression may contain one or two parts - either it is a block from SI to NISI which is executed only if the expression following SI evaluates to something different from 0, or it contains a block from SI to ALIAS which is executed only if the expression following SI evaluates to something different from 0 and a block from ALIAS to NISI which is executed only if the expression following SI evaluates to 0.

• Conditional loops: I am just about to encode the DUM and USQUE loops which implement "do while" and "repeat until" type loops.

• Iterations: The famous FOR...NEXT loop from BASIC exists in Cathol under the guise of NUMERABIS AB INITIO... USQUE AD... (...) PROCEDE. In the example, the variablen is iterated from 3 to the value of fibn.

• Procedures: In Cathol, a procedure is defined using the INCIPIT CANTUS and AMEN delimiters. It may take any numbers of parameters (of any type) and return one value (of any type) or none using the REDDE command.

  Procedures may be directly or indirectly recursive. In the example, fibonacci takes one parameter. Arguments and parameters must match.

• Overall structure: A program's entry point (that which is called main() in C) is defined by the phrase PAENITENTIAM AGE, and its termination point by EGO TE ABSOLVO.

The library

There is also the command ORA (pray) which evaluates an expression and sends the result to, nobody knows where.

Scope of identifiers:

Peculiarities:

In the interest of speed and stability, Cathol is as static as can be. True, for obscuration dynamic memory allocation is required (very much at the cost of speed), but in general, the interpreter grasps a few big chunks of memory at startup which it releases during shutdown. In the time between, this memory is treated as a rigid array.

Cathol does not like complex expressions. There are many cases where, unlike almost all other languages, a variable or constant is required which may not be replaced by an arithmetic expression. For example, function calls demand such unitary arguments: INVOCA @function variable-1 variable+1 (as in most other languages: function( variable-1, variable+1) ) is not a valid Cathol expression; you must first do something like FIAT prevvar variable-1 and FIAT nextvar variable+1, then you can call INVOCA @function prevvar nextvar. This was introduced on purpose (actually the parser were capable of a little workaround: INVOCA @function (variable-1) (variable+1) would prevent it from getting confused about the proper assignments, but a deliberate syntax check causes this to be rejected) in order to enforce a maximum of clarity: When the intermediate result is stored in a named variable, the meaning becomes much more obvious.

Actually, there's more to this. As types can be freely converted, the meaning of operators may depend on the result expected, as said before. However, a command such as SCRIBE will accept any result. Therefore, the formula SCRIBE 4+"5" is not defined properly: Is this to be interpreted as 4+5 -> 9 or as "4"+"5" -> "45"? It becomes unambiguous, however, if we enforce it with something like FIAT result 4+"5" orFIAT $result 4+"5".

There is another sophistication. In function calls (as different from procedural invocations), the called function's parameters are used to generate expectations. Therefore, if we have a CANTUS INCIPIT fibo CUM n, it is legal to write FIAT r (@fibo n-1)+(@fibo n-2).

There is no operator precedence whatsoever in Cathol. When you spend two hours of debugging just to find out that the C term *++x->y-- should actually have read *(++x->y--) or maybe *(++x->y)--, you begin to hate implicit precedence as much as the implicit declarations in FORTRAN. Therefore, all operators associate to the right, causing the slightly surprising effect that RADIX 2 * RADIX 2 evaluates not to 2 but to 1.6817928305074292 (because the interpreter reads this as RADIX( 2 * RADIX( 2 ))). You can put everything right by proper bracketing (what's wrong about writing, once more in a slightly LISPish manner, (RADIX 2) * (RADIX 2) anyway?)

This section is largely equivalent to the corresponding part from the Morgul pages.

• Nightmare Coming Back to Arthur C. Clarke:

  Back in the 1960s, Clarke, one of the more intelligent sci-fi writers (there were in fact intelligent writers in those bygone days), allowed himself to be inspired by the Towers of Hanoi puzzle to a story whose plot is about an order of monks who are bent on writing down all the names of God. According to their faith, God's name comprises nine sacred letters, and any permutation of these is one of His names. Now the monks wish to automatize their task.
  This is pretty simple: Just use nine interlocked cycles in order to print all permutations from AAAAAAAAA to IIIIIIIII. Forgive me my desire to see the beginning of a new world, but I also checked this:

  
  

  Language	secs
  Common Lisp	~ 6000
  Java	3
  C	3.7
  Python	2096
  Cathol	1511

  
  

• Roots, fibonaccis and the rest:

  Language	Fibonacci	Iterative Fibo	Roots
  Common Lisp	7.3 sec / 5.8 sec	454 µsec / 200 µsec	520 msec / 485 msec
  Common Lisp, compiled	1.06 sec	41 µsec	194 msec
  Uncommon Lisp	~35 sec	***	***
  Scheme	31 sec	~700 µsec	~750 msec
  Xscheme	~2.5 sec	***	***
  Guile	~7 sec	~400 µsec	~470 msec
  Silk	26 sec	610 µsec	800 msec
  Erlang	0.06 sec	39 µsec	16 msec
  Haskell (HUGS)	81 sec	***	***
  Haskell (GHC) int./comp.	~6 sec / <<0.5 sec	***	***
  Python	2.71 sec	53 µsec	303 msec
  C	0.06 sec	0.19 µsec	3 msec
  Java	0.05 sec	0.48 µsec	6 msec
  CATHOL	6.73 sec	22 µsec	16 msec

  
  

  To sum it up: Cathol is pretty fast!

  
  

• The Towers of Hanoi:

  Well, I worked hard to implement this only to find out that one of the chips on my computer's board clandestinely sympathizes with Al-Qaida and blew up the stuff as soon as it was set up! And currently I do not have the money for a new chipset. So there will be no Towers here, I am afraid...

• Who created Cathol, and when?

  Probably I am expected to thank somebody here, only I do not know whom. The plain truth is: I, me, myself, the Chevalier Dr. Dr. Rüdiger Marcus Flaig, did it all on my own. Nobody helped me, no code was reused, nothing. It is a de novo creation (generatio spontanea, for those who already know Latin). Likewise, I did not use any literature or documentation except for the glibc docu.

  Cathol was written on January 15th, 2003 and debugged and tested during the following week.

• What are the license conditions for Cathol?

  For your convenience, we offer two alternative licensing schemes.

  OPEN SOURCE: The whole program, source and all, is licensed under the GPL (see http://www.gnu.org) which may be roughly summarized like this:
  It is free and provided on an "as is" basis. We hope that you'll enjoy it, but we do not guarantee fitness for any particular purpose. Take it or leave it; feel free to use it, read it, learn from it, modify it, even make money out of it, but abide by the following golden rules:

  • Do not claim original authorship.
  • Do not withhold the source code.
  • Do not remove this remark or impose other restrictions.

  MICROSLAVERY (x86 machines only): For the Amazingly Low Price® of only € 995,- you will Get The Registered Executable But Nothing Else®, which you May Try To Install® on your computer, provided that you also have registered copies of MS-Inquisition®, MS-Orcware® and MS-Sneak And Pry® installed. If this Wrecks Your System® or Causes Trouble®, this is Your Own Problem® and There's Nothing You Can Do About It®.  Our special service program includes that You Must Not Analyze The Code®. Because if you were allowed to, you might be able to hand in a bug report, and this would require some reaction on our side. We are convinced that What We Give You Is Good Enough For You® and you are not permitted to bother us, still less to make suggestions what we should change. Always keep in mind that We Are The Champions And You Are A Doofus®.  Though your hard disk is going to be Flooded With Irritating Lots Of DLL Files®, you will also Get Lots Of Error Messages® to the tune of "Could not find DLL xxxx".  If, however, the program should run (which we have taken great care to avoid, but sometimes it just happens), it has A Limited Life Time®. After 366 days, you will be Asked To Renew Your Contract® for the Amazingly Low Price® of only € 666,-. If you decline, the program will Really Do Mischief®, that is to say, it will remove itself after Crashing Your Hard Disk®, Kicking Your Poodle®, and Seducing Your Wife®.  Of course, all this will not save you from being pestered with Lots Of Annoying Pop-Ups®, Childish Yellow Plastic Dogs® and a Plethora Of Idiotic Trademark Signs® all the time, nor from having all your most confidential data being sent to us. "There cannot be a categorical imperative without a categorical imperator" (Nietzsche) ... and You Have Just Found Yours®!

  Which one to select? Common sense would probably not require a second to decide, but for some unintelligible reason more than 95% of users still prefer the Microslavery scheme...

  
  

  Download current version of source code (GPL)

  Order executable (Microslavery)

  Download FREE test suite (Zip archive)

  
  

• What is the language in which Cathol itself is implemented?

  There can be only one... C. Not C++, not C#, not Objective C, but plain and simple ANSI C ("separates the men from the boys"). It was written on a Linux system named cirith-ungol (a Pentium-III/933, 256 MBytes RAM laptop) using gcc (the GNU C compiler) version 3.2, using, of course, the "--no-warnings" flag. No risk, no fun.

  And of course, I did not use KDE-develop, Anjuta or any other IDE. If you can't do it using Emacs, consider doing something else.

• On which systems does Cathol run?

  To use the timer, the rt lib is required, but apart from that, there should be nothing in this which would overstrain a K&R compiler from the 1970s. So the proper answer is: All. Okay, I know that somebody will now turn up with his old Sinclair ZX81 or Schneider CPC... It requires a C compiler, of course. And, depending on the #defines, a bit of RAM. I have not checked this but I think below 2 - 3 MB of RAM it won't work. Bad luck for those of you who are still clinging to their Apple Lisa because they paid $30,000 for it some twenty-five years ago.

• Is there a Java version of Cathol?

  Not yet, but if you want to implement JATHOL, you are certainly welcome.

• I cannot find ./configure nor any RPM files!

  C'm on man, this is one file only.

• I cannot find setup.exe!

  The fact that you are thinking in terms of "setup.exe" indicates that you are completely indoctrinated by Microslavery. Well, this is curable. I underwent a compulsory detox in 2001 and have been clean ever since.

• I AM DISAPPOINTED! I have tried this and that, and it won't work. I reimplemented my 500'000 lines-of-code version of HELLO WORLD (using raytraced 3D letters with Robespierre shading for textured surfaces and a genetic algorithm for anticipating typographic developments in the 22nd century), which worked all right in BALLABALLA-84, only to find that the Cathol interpreter crashed at the first sharp turn.

  Cut it out, will ya? This thing was written just for fun. You are not meant to use it for any serious purpose. It is not even complete, and there are probably more bugs in it than I have dealt out sword-blows in my life, and that's quite a number. Anyway, I did not invest more than 20 hours of work in it all in all. If you enjoyed it, and would like me to continue, I would appreciate all detailed bug reports.