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The documents included in this package constitute the progress report covering Phase I of the project Improving Productivity in the Development of Large Software Systems. The deliverables for Phase I, as outlined in section 8 of the proposal, fall into the categories of environment, language framework, and code generator. The last of these categories is discussed in the document Coagulating Code Generator-Prototype Implementation. The first two categories have a more indirect relationship with the other three documents in this report. It has been our contention from the outset that there must be a close connection between the designs of an environment and language. To quote from the proposal, the difficulty is that environments have usually been afterthoughts to the language design and the existence of a powerful environment...affects the nature of the language. As our research progressed during Phase 1, we became increasingly convinced of the tightness of the connection, to the point of choosing the name E-L, for environment and language, to describe our design. Programming manual is something we expect a substantial percentage of E-L programmers to use, as they become more sophisticated in their use of the system. The E-L Definition is more than just an extended reference manual. It also includes what would be considered rationale material in other language descriptions. This is motivated by the desire to convey the issues that arise when doing an extension. Much of what looks built-in is in fact based on E-L's extension mechanisms, and when a programmer is considering an extension, it is natural that he should know the principles that governed the design of built-in extensions .

The documents included in this package constitute the progress report covering Phase I of the project Improving Productivity in the Development of Large Software Systems. The deliverables for Phase I, as outlined in section 8 of the proposal, fall into the categories of environment, language framework, and code generator. The last of these categories is discussed in the document Coagulating Code Generator-Prototype Implementation. The first two categories have a more indirect relationship with the other three documents in this report. It has been our contention from the outset that there must be a close connection between the designs of an environment and language. To quote from the proposal, the difficulty is that environments have usually been afterthoughts to the language design and the existence of a powerful environment...affects the nature of the language. As our research progressed during Phase 1, we became increasingly convinced of the tightness of the connection, to the point of choosing the name E-L, for environment and language, to describe our design. Programming manual is something we expect a substantial percentage of E-L programmers to use, as they become more sophisticated in their use of the system. The E-L Definition is more than just an extended reference manual. It also includes what would be considered rationale material in other language descriptions. This is motivated by the desire to convey the issues that arise when doing an extension. Much of what looks built-in is in fact based on E-L's extension mechanisms, and when a programmer is considering an extension, it is natural that he should know the principles that governed the design of built-in extensions .

The project began with a re-examination of the roles and boundaries of programming language and environments. The belief was that present technology was a result of historical drift rather than technical foresight. The expectation was that a fresh look at modern hardware and programming practices would result in significantly better languages and environments. By better we mean the results would, for example, reduce redundant effort and increase automation of implicit tasks, in order to allow the programmer to focus on the content of a problem. These are vague and lofty goals but our plan was specific and concrete. We developed appropriate formal underpinnings on which we based the implementation of infrastructures for developing languages and environments. We used the infrastructures to design and implement a new language and environment, called E-L.

Es ist die Nacht vom 26. auf den 27. November des Jahres 1703. Eine muntere Gesellschaft feiert auf dem Eddystone die Fertigstellung des neuen Leuchtturms. Doch eine uralte Sage umrankt diesen Felsen vor der Küste von Cornwall und bestimmt das Schicksal der auf dem Leuchtturm versammelten Personen. (Zusammenfassung von Rainer)