Medium Term

The SIC command monitor should be improved along the following lines:

• more rigorous syntax and grammar
• compatibility as far as possible with the old syntax
• Keep the "Fortran" interface for mathematics. C-like mathematics would cause problems because of array ordering, and C is less suited for mathematics and array handling than Fortran.
• Better mathematic handling, including more functions.
  • ``Extensible dimension'':
    support for formulas like C = A/B where A and C are N-Dim arrays and B is a N-1 Dim array.
  • Suppression of the COMPUTE command by operators, e.g. COMPUTE B FFT A    is replaced by   B = FFT(A)
  • support for reduction operations, e.g. COMPUTE C MAX A    is replaced by   C = MAX(A)
  • More functions, e.g. DIM(A) SIZEOF(A) etc... are desirable
  • Character sub-string extraction would be useful
  Whether inner and outer product operators should be introduced may be considered.

This improvement could be a subject for a student work. Gilles Duvert will write up the scope, goals and limits of the subject. Depending on whether a student can be found for this spring/summer or not, the timescale for this upgrade could be 6 months to 18 months.

Multi-tasking was mentionned as a possible development line, by introduction of events, perhaps in a AIPS++ style. This could simplify the handling of interactive graphic events, such as cursor operation. This could also simplify the GUI interface programming. No proposal was put forward at this stage.

Action Gilles Duvert to write up working plan.