xerox 19771126 On Janus Procedures free download

File name 19771126_On_Janus_Procedures.pdf

XEROX BUSINESS SYSTEMS Systems Development Division November 26. 1977 i1 SDD nCBlftS ~o a un~erstood 1 bave read an To: User Interface Group pages_------ To_----- From: Dave Smith / SO at Palo Alto Date~_--- ReViewer-----_-;-ef.. .:::/ 1 '$ !? 12 ;:..32'1 Subject: On Janus Procedures f of pages_ - Filed on: janus-procedures.press Disclaimer: This paper has no relationship to the section that wilt go in the Janus Functional Spec. It is strictly a "think piece" discussing what I think are interesting ideas concerning procedures. The Functional Spec section will. of course, omit all of the philosophical discourse (otherwise known as bullshit). Second Disclaimer: There are various ideas floating around the Janus program as to what "procedures" should be used for: - automating repetitive tasks (me, Paul) - data management (Richard, Peter Bishop, Linda, Ron Johnson?) - information flow control (OfficeTalk, Richard?, Peter Bishop?, Ron Johnson?) - others? I don't think these are necessarily disjoint; in fact I expect the procedure design discussed here to be applicable to all of the application areas above; certainly by the second or third release of Janus. However focusing on an application has tended to lead the designers down different paths. I am concentrating on procedures as recorded sequences 0/ user actions, I.e. as macros. Therefore, to clarify that this is what I mean by "procedure", I will use the term "user macro" or simply "macro" instead of "procedure" in this memo. Hopefully this will integrate with whatever other procedure facilities people implement (e.g. records processing). Goals The user macro design described here is intended to accomplish two goals: 1. To permit the average user to "program" his Janus system. The main purpose of the programming is to automate his repetitive tasks. A user who cannot program his computer can only exploit a fraction of its power. 2 2. To make the programming no more difficult than the normal operation of the system. This goal is, of course, not absolutely achievable; however I believe that this design comes close. If we can achieve goal #1, then pro