Is Drocta ~ATH Case- And Whitespace-sensitive? For Instance, Would "BIFURCATE 2NULL[JUNK,BLAH];" Do The

I couldn't help but notice that out of some of the best things you could do, no link to the download in the sidebar? You may want to do that...

uh, yes. that would be good to do.

I put a link in the about section, but I don't actually know how to put links in the sidebar outside of that.

do you think you could explain that for me?(I am not particularly experienced with tumblr)

EDIT:Nevermind, my friend from school told me where the feature is.

Heyho, I now red alot of your sources and i started to understand your interpretation of ~ATH. You do alot of things with the bifurcate command.. I actually thought that bifrucate JUST splits the programm in different colors like here : "bifurcate THIS[THIS(red), THIS(blue)]; " I think that you can actually split your script into N colors while N > 0. like this: bifrucate THIS[THIS(COLOR(0),THIS(COLOR(1),THIS(COLOR(2),THIS(COLOR(3),THIS(COLOR(4),THIS(COLOR(5),THIS(COLOR(6)] and so on.

Yes. I do use BIFURCATE often.

Personally, I doubt that one could say

BIFURCATE A[D,B,C]; (for some names and colors for a b c and d),

because of the "Bi" part of the word "bifurcate", meaning two. (or in some cases, "both")

Further, I would defend my use of it to BIFURCATE things other than  THIS with http://mspaintadventures.com/?viewmap=6 which, for the start of act 5, says

BIFURCATE ACT_5[red(ACT_1), blue(ACT_2)];

which seems to indicate that things other than THIS can be BIFURCATED.

To split something into more than 2 parts, I would just bifurcate it multiple times. *

I don't know what the etiquette is for whether I should click publish or answer privately, so I am going to pick one and hope for the best.

Conditionals and (finite) loops

In drocta ~ATH, the control flow (what part of the program is run when) is almost entirely determined by ~ATH loops.

The only case where it isn't is when the object initially pointed to by THIS dies. That ends the program immediately. 

This post will show in more detail the basics of its usage.(also introduces the variable NULL)

Is there anything in this post that needs to be clarified?

In a program, you might want something to only happen if something else is true, or you might want it to happen provided that something had not happened.

In many programming languages you would use a command called if.

drocta ~ATH does not have an if statement.

Instead, you create a loop on an object, and inside the loop kill the object.

A little morbid, but isn't ~ATH always?

for example:

SOMECODEHERE ~ATH(SOMEVAR){ SOMEVAR.DIE(); SOMEOTHERSTUFF } SOMEOTHERSTUFF 

However, this isn't the only way. There is another way that is likely preferable in most situations. I just thought this way was the most obvious, and would be an easy way to explain the other method, which is quite similar.

The loop doesn't exactly wait for the object to die, but rather repeats so long as the variable points to an object that is alive. The variable can be made to point to an object that is not alive, either by make the object it points to DIE(), or by making it so it points to a different object that is ALREADY DEAD.

(How can you expect to kill it, when it is ALREADY DEAD?!? haha)

So if the object you wanted the part of the script to run if it was alive was important, and you didn't want to kill it, you could just do this:

BIFURCATE [IMPORTANTOBJECTVAR,IMPORTANTOBJECTVAR]BLAH; BIFURCATE BLAH[V,V]; ~ATH(V){ BIFURCATE [V,NULL]V; BIFURCATE V[JUNK,V]; OTHER CODE TO ONLY EXECUTE IF IMPORTHATOBJECT IS ALIVE } 

Thats nice to be able to do, isn't it.

In fact, it leads nicely into how to make loops that go around a fixed number of times.

suppose if you had

BIFURCATE [BLAH,NULL]V; ~ATH(V){ BIFURCATE V[BLAH,V]; DO OTHER STUFF, POSSIBLY WITH BLAH  }  MORE STUFF 

V would initially be alive, so it would go into the loop, but then V would be made to point to the NULL object, which is dead, so it wouldn't loop the second time.(it would skip to after the loop

that would do the stuff in the loop once.

now what if you wanted to do it twice?

Just make it so it has to bifurcate the thing twice before moving on! Like so:

BIFURCATE [BLAH,NULL]V; BIFURCATE [BLAH,V]V; ~ATH(V){ BIFURCATE V[BLAH,V]; DO OTHER STUFF, POSSIBLY WITH BLAH  }  MORE STUFF 

 this way it will go through the loop, pop off the one side of V, doing the other stuff in the loop. V will still point to something alive after this, so it will do it again, but this time, when it pops off one side of V, the result will be the NULL object, so it will stop.

Thats a loop that goes around twice!

This can be extended to as many number of repetitions as follows:

BIFURCATE [BLAH,NULL]V; BIFURCATE [BLAH,V]V; BIFURCATE [BLAH,V]V; BIFURCATE [BLAH,V]V; ETCETERA BIFURCATE [BLAH,V]V; ~ATH(V){ BIFURCATE V[BLAH,V]; DO OTHER STUFF, POSSIBLY WITH BLAH  }  MORE STUFF 

where the loop will go around however many blahs there are attached to the NULL, because it will keep popping the BLAHs of until it reaches NULL.

The variable V is being used to store how many more loops need to be executed, Which is a number.

V is being used to store a number. 

You might be thinking something along the lines of

"Well this is all very nice, but that seems to only allow for loops that loop a predetermined amount of times."

NOT SO!

You can have another loop that makes a variable point to a number, which would then be in another loop! For example, the following will add two numbers in A and B, store the result in C, copy that result to CTEMP, and then print "some text" the ammount of times in CTEMP!

SOME CODE TO GET A AND B HERE import bluh BLAH; BIFURCATE [BLAH,A]ATEMP; BIFURCATE [BLAH,B]BTEMP; BIFURCATE ATEMP[JUNK,ATEMP]; BIFURCATE BTEMP[JUNK,BTEMP]; BIFURCATE [BLAH,NULL]C; BIFURCATE C[JUNK,C]; ~ATH(ATEMP){ BIFURCATE ATEMP[JUNK,ATEMP]; BIFURCATE [BLAH,C]C; } ~ATH(BTEMP){ BIFURCATE BTEMP[JUNK,BTEMP]; BIFURCATE [BLAH,C]C; } BIFURCATE [BLAH,C]CTEMP; BIFURCATE CTEMP[JUNK,CTEMP]; ~ATH(CTEMP){ BIFURCATE CTEMP[JUNK,CTEMP]; print some text; } print DONE!; 

YAY! We just added two numbers together! In similar ways, we can also subtract, multiply, divide, etcetera! 

if some of this was unclear I would appreciate requests for what needs to be clarified.

Is there anything in this post that needs clarification?

WOAAAAHHHH I posted! (significant progress on functions)

Hey, I haven't posted in a while because I have been doing other stuff. Meanwhile some people followed me. Thank you.

OK, so news: I got calling functions working. it works and stuff.

huh, apparently tumblr changed the interface since I last posted? I think I preferred the previous version? w/e.

But what I haven't added yet is the syntax to define and create a new function. Right now I just have some functions hard-coded in as elements of a dictionary. If you want to try it out just modify the funCodes dictionary. (yes, I am terrible at naming variables.)

Yeah so, I an not totally sure what I am going to have for the syntax for defining a function, but the syntax for calling a function is

FUNCTION_NAME [IN1,IN2]OUT;

(which takes the object consisting of IN1 and IN2 and puts it through the function, where it would be stored as the variable ARGS, and when it finishes the last thing .DIE() was called with is what gets put into OUT)

and then theres

FUNCTION_NAME IN[OUT1,OUT2];

which kinda does the opposite.

takes in IN, and splits the out into OUT1 and OUT2

(this version (the FUNCTION IN[OUT,OUT]; one, as opposed to the FUNCTION[IN,IN]OUT; one) isn't actually implemented yet, but mostly I will just have to copy paste it from the other one and change a few numbers, but I have to homework now so I'll do that later.)

to clarify, the same functions can be used either way. You can say LIME [LIME,LIME]LIME; or you can say LIME LIME[LIME,LIME]; and they would both call the function LIME, but they would do slightly different things.

hooray for stuff.

anyway I am going to go uh, push that new version.

How should the syntax for defining a function be? Should it just be each file can be imported as a function?

Syntax explanation

~ATH is a programming language. A programming language is a language that can be used to write programs in, that can afterwards be run. ~ATH appears in Homestuck, and drocta ~ATH is my attempt at making it a real thing.

drocta ~ATH is limited to what is physically possible of course, because it actually exists. It is also limited to fit well with the comic, and how much of it I have created so far.

As such, so far all the programs that can be written in drocta ~ATH are text only, do not yet accept input (input in progress), and tend to be stupidly long.

It is however capable of computing anything a computer can given enough time and memory.

~ATH is based on objects, and the lives thereof. 

For example, in homestuck, there are programs that relate things to the lifespan of a universe, or a person, etc.

Of course, in order to make an interpreter possible, we have to limit ourselves to virtual objects. Ones that do not actually exist.

References to these objects are stored in things called variables. You probably know what these are already, but if you don't, think of a variable as a box that can have a thing in it. Each box has a name. You can say "do something with whatever is in the box called "apple".

In ~ATH, every object is either "alive" or "dead".  Note that it is the object that is alive or dead, not the variable that refers to the object.

Now onto the actual syntax!:

Currently(as of build 7), drocta ~ATH has 5 different commands: import, ~ATH(){}, .DIE();, print, and BIFURCATE.

First we will go over the import statement. The import statement has the purpose of creating a new variable and a new object. Unlike other operations that can create a new object, the object created by import is initially unrelated to all of the other objects.

The syntax of the import command is:

import anything other than semicolons here VARIABLENAME;

The things between import and the last space before the semicolon are ignored.  

In future versions, the import statement might also do additional things, such as using things from other files. But for now it just initializes variables.

EXAMPLES:

If you wanted to make a new variable called BANANA, and you wanted the reader to know that BANANA is a fruit, you would say:

import FRUIT BANANA;

or you could say

import YELLOW FRUIT BANANA;

The things that go before the variable name don't actually matter, you can say

import ghsdgh hgsdkhg hgksdhg hgskdjg BANANA;

if you wanted.

Now for the next command: The eponymous ~ATH loop!

The syntax of it is as follows:

~ATH(VARNAME){ Some other code goes here }

What this does, is each time the code execution gets to the ~, it checks what the variable in the parentheses is, and then checks the object the variable points to. If the object is alive, it continues. If the object is dead, it skips to after the }. When the Code execution reaches the }, (that is, if it did not skip to after it), it will jump back to the corresponding ~. Code execution will keep going around in this loop until the object pointed to by the variable is not alive. In later versions, there may be an additional requirement that the } be followed by EXECUTE(code here); Where code here can be replaced with ~ATH code, NULL, or possibly a file name. But currently, this is not the case. Now onto the command BIFURCATE!: Bufurcate actually has 2 forms, the standard bifurcate, And the reverse bifurcate. The first of the two has syntax as follows:

BIFURCATE VARNAME1[VARNAME2,VARNAME3];

What this does, is it takes the object pointed to by the first variable, and determines two objects, which are stored in the other two variables. The two objects determined will always be the same for a particular object.  If you for example say:

BIFURCATE V1[V2,V3]; V2.DIE(); BIFURCATE V1[V4,V5]; 

then V4 and V2 will point to the same object, which will be dead.

The other form of the BIFURCATE command has syntax as follows:

BIFURCATE [VAR1,VAR2]VAR3;

This is pretty much the inverse operation. That is, it undoes the other one. If you say for example:

BIFURCATE A[B,C]; BIFURCATE [B,C]D; 

then A and D will point to the same object. To be clear, undoing the other is not the only time you can use it. It will take any two objects, and determine an object from those two. If there is already an object for the combination of those two, then that object is the resultant object. If none has been created yet (and the two arent split from something in that order), it will create a new object, which it will put in VAR3.

To be clear, if you say:

BIFURCATE A[B,C]; BIFURCATE [C,B]D; 

 A and D will NOT point to the same object, unless you create A such that B and C are the same. That is, if you say:

BIFURCATE [Y,Y]A; BIFURCATE A[B,C]; BIFURCATE [C,B]D; 

 A and D WILL point to the same object, and B and C will both point to the same object as Y (and as each other).

The Final command is print.

print is pretty simple, but its syntax might change somewhat.

Currently the syntax is:

print the text you want to output;

Note the semicolon. the semicolon is important.

So hello world would be

print Hello, World.;

SYNTAX EXPLANATION COMPLETE! PLEASE SUGGEST CLARIFICATIONS IF NECESSARY.

MESSAGE END.

@ karkathateseveryonesposts

Anon in that ask was me, not rping as you say but what I meant from computer-exploding code is I was unsure if ~ATH was supposed to crash once running a code like Sollux's.  Also, there couldn't be a syntax error as the program crashes if I press enter with no code on it yet.

Ah! My apologies for my misunderstanding, I interpreted the reference to computer exploding scripts combined with your handle to [ justification for why I misinterpreted snipped for brevity].

You don’t type the script in when you run the program. You need to first save the script as a seperate file, and then when you run the interpreter, type in the filename.

The last bit of the interpreter says like

filename=raw_input() filelink=open(filename,'r') script=filelink.read(-1) result_obj=evalScript(script,NULL_obj) raw_input("press enter to close")

I probably should have made it more clearly ask for a file name instead of just having a prompt with no explanation.

(also, wow, this reminds me that this code was written in python 2.7 and not python 3. Maybe I should update it to use python 3? There’s also many other things about it that ought to be improved but it isn’t high on my priorities..)

My ~ATH keeps crashing whenever I run a non-computer exploding code, or if I press enter. Why is this?

Based on the username which recently followed this blog at the same time as I received this ask (which I won't say what it was because you asked this on anon, and haven't received permission), I'd guess that you may be running a different version of ~ATH than the one I document here :P

Unfortunately, I don't have a specification for the version you have.

If you have such a specification, or the executable for it, I'd be happy to take a look if you could send it to me, haha.

If on the off chance you are using the version I document here, then presumably you have a syntax error or something in your code?

Ok, apparently I hadn't pushed the code that allows user input to github.

I had written the code for user input a while ago, but apparently it didn't get put on github. And then my local copy got deleted. But I rewrote it today, and I fixed a bug with reverse bifurcation. So it should work now. And I have confirmed that it did indeed get put on github, so I don't need to worry about this happening again.

re: "computationalalchemist answered: You could use Prolog-style lists for split."

"computationalalchemist answered: You could use Prolog-style lists for split."

I'm not totally sure what you mean, but my best guess as to what you meant is probably pretty similar to how I making it.

I implemented it and I think it works, I need to double check though.

With what I have now when I use 

split [THIS,THIS,THIS,THIS,THIS,THIS,NULL]COUNTER; ~ATH(COUNTER){ print "bananas"; BIFURCATE COUNTER[JUNK,COUNTER]; }EXECUTE(print "ok";); print "whee!";

it yields 

bananas bananas bananas bananas bananas bananas ok whee!

Which seems to make sense to me, and also, fits with how lisp lists work, and apparently also prolog lists.

also where it says split it will also accept bifurcate. they are actually treated as the same command.

import statements aren't fully implemented yet though.

I think I will put this version on github pretty soon.

Thank you for the advice.

So, I just found this and have no clue what's going on. Could you maybe make, like, a simple guide to programming ~ATH? I understand how your python works, but not how to program ~ATH.

Hi!That is sort of what this blog was meant to be.I was trying to explain how to write programs in it, starting with “how do I represent numbers in it?” but then I started prioritizing other projects.I do want to get back to this one though.Perhaps I can give a brief summary in this ask response, and you can tell me what parts you would like clarification on? I will attempt that. I would appreciate it if you tell me what parts of this explanation you are unclear on, or say more about what you don’t understand about how to use drocta ~ATH.

(drocta ~ATH, as a reminder, is my interpretation of how ~ATH could work, which attempts to stay as true to the comic as it can, while still being turing complete, and also possible to implement in reality)In drocta ~ATH there are things called objects. Every object (except for possibly one depending on the specific version of the interpreter, but that isn’t an important detail.) is initially alive. Once an object dies, it cannot be made alive again.Every object has a left half, and a right half, which are both objects. Just because an object is dead does not mean that its left or right halves are dead. Similarly, just because both an object’s left and right halves are dead does not mean that the object is dead.

Also, for any two objects (possibly the same object), there is an object such that the left half of it is the first object, and the right half of it is the second object.

(skippable sidenote : Yes, this would mean that there are infinitely many objects, but they are only /really/ created by the interpreter when they become relevant, so really there are only ever finitely many that the computer is keeping track of)

A variable, in drocta ~ATH, refers to an object. However, it often does not always refer to the same object at different points during the program.

For example, suppose you want some variable to refer to a number which changes during the program. The way that the number which the variable refers to changes is by changing what object the variable refers to.

There are two ways to change what object a variable refers to.

1:Suppose you have three variables names VAR1, VAR2, VAR3.BIFURCATE VAR1[VAR2,VAR3];will take the left half of the object that VAR1 points to, and make VAR2 point to it, instead of whatever it was pointing to before, if anything, and it takes the right half, and makes VAR3 point to it instead of whatever it was pointing to before, if anything.

2:Again, with three variables VAR1, VAR2, VAR3:BIFURCATE [VAR1,VAR2]VAR3;will take the object pointed to by VAR1, and the object pointed to by VAR2, and finds the object such that the left half is the first one, and the right half is the second one, and makes VAR3 point to this object.

Also, when you initially declare an variable it makes a new object for it.

Now, in order to make an object dead, you take a variable (named, say, examplevariable) which currently points to it, and put examplevariable.DIE();and then the object will be dead. Note that this does not make examplevariable point to a different object, which is the same as the one it pointed to before except for being dead. This actually changes the object.In fact, this is the only operation that actually changes an object.

loops:How do you do control flow with this?Well, you use ~ATH loops.

A ~ATH loop looks like this:

~ATH(SOMEVARIABLENAME){//SOME CODE GOES HERE}

What this will do, is it will check if the object currently pointed to by SOMEVARIABLENAME is dead, and if it is not, it runs the code which is {between the curly brackets}. Then, it checks again if the object currently pointed to by SOMEVARIABLENAME is dead, and if not, runs the code inside again. This keeps on repeating until a time that it checks if SOMEVARIABLENAME currently points to an object which is dead, and it is, at which point the program keeps running after the curly brackets.

Note that which object the variable name points to may be changed by the code inside the curly brackets, and probably will be. Changing which object the variable is pointing to is the main way to make the loop exit.

speaking of, let’s get to numbers:

drocta ~ATH doesn’t have numbers as a built in thing. You have to make up your own numbers. But there is a sort of standard way to do so. Where by “standard” I mean, “it is the way that makes the most sense / is the most obvious, and is the way I usually do it”

if some object is the positive integer n, then an object x which has n as the right half, and some object which is alive as the left half, then that object x is n+1 .1 is an object where the left half is a dead object, and the right half is anything.

The reason for this is because this way you can make loops which do things n times, for n>0.

say the object representing n is pointed to by VAR1 , and VAR2 doesn’t point to anything you care about, but it does point to something which is alive, and VAR3 points to an object which represents 1, but you aren’t using it for anything else. You can make a loop like this:

~ATH(VAR2){BIFURCATE VAR1[VAR2,VAR1]; //decrease VAR1 by 1BIFURCATE [VAR2,VAR3]VAR3; /* increase VAR3 by 1, except if this is the last time through the loop, in which case this makes a small error, but one which will be fixed later *///put the stuff you want in the loop here.//Don’t do things to VAR1, VAR2, or VAR3 that you don’t undo though. 

}BIFURCATE VAR3[JUNK,VAR3]; //removes the extra thing that was added to VAR3.

The result of this is that it will do the code you put in the middle n times, and that VAR3 will still store the number n afterwards.

Following processes like these, it is possible to do basically anything you could with a “counter machine / minsky machine” .

Fortunately, there are also things which make things a bit more convenient than using a minsky machine.

In much the same way that you can create numbers, you can also make lists.Just put the successive entries in the list as left halfs of objects, and have the right halves be the list as made so far. (so, basically, the left half is the first element, and the right half is the rest).A caveat here is to make sure that the left half is never a dead object, because that can make it so that the end of the list is detected pre-maturely. However, you might at some point (if you write a lot of drocta ~ATH, which, I am not certain why you would, haha) find that useful to cut the remaining part of a list off.

Of course, when I say to put something as the left half or right half of an object, feel free to switch that in each case. It doesn’t matter as long as you are consistent.

oh, I left out the parts about how to do input and output .

there are some example files on the github for you to check out which have that?

Please let me know if you have any further questions. I’m not sure which parts of this need clarification, so if part of it is unclear, you would be doing me and any other readers of my blog a favor by asking me to clarify them, so please do not hesitate to ask me to clarify any specific part, or to ask me any other question about ~ATH.

Thank you for your interest,

~drocta / ~hE 

Hello again all!

So recently I started kind of working on this again for a bit. I have fixed some bugs with the parser that I haven't pushed yet. I am also writing an improved interpreter that will use the parser instead of the hacky thing that just goes through strings.

However, for the time being, even after I release this version, I would recommend maybe using the older version for a while if anyone is using it, because this version is probably even more buggy.

However, you know how a few posts ago (but more than a year ago (wow) ) I posted that post where I said that I didn't think bifurcate can be used to split values into more than 2 values?

Well I still kind of think that, but on the map page for homestuck on act 6, it says split Act_6[Act_1,Act_2,Act_3,<etc>];

So this is something I intend to implement, and something I am implementing.

And like I said before I would like it to be done with repeated bifurcation, as a sort of syntactic sugar.

And I am thinking I want it to be like

[a,b,c] means the same thing as [a,[b,c]]

so split Z[A,B,C];

would be the same as

BIFURCATE Z[A,BCTEMP]; BIFURCATE BCTEMP[B,C];

and that split [A,B,C]Z;

would be the same as

BIFURCATE [B,C]BCTEMP; BIFURCATE [A,BCTEMP]Z;

But the way the splits would be done could also be backwards

so [a,b,c] could be the same as [[a,b],c]

I'm pretty sure I prefer the first way, but the second way is actually easier to implement.

or at least cleaner looking to implement.

Why doesn't my code look clean ever?

Anyway, my reason for this post is this:

Does anyone have any opinions about how split is implemented?