4. History‎ > ‎

Lingo: Birth, Evolution, Demise.


Lingo 

- scripting language for Macromedia Director


- predecessor to Flash/ActionScript & JavaScript

- Designed for beginners

- Dynamic language -- untyped

- Auto memory management

- Objects

- Cross Platform


-- Example of Lingo syntax of Fibonacci sequence
on fib n
  if n <= 2 then return 1
  return fib(n-2) + fib(n-1)
end
(Classic sequence attributed to Fibonacci should be called pingala)


Lingo influenced by...












BASIC 

- Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code


2030 ARRAY F
2040 LET F[0] = 0
2050 LET F[1] = 1
2060 LET N = 1
2080 LET F[N+1] = F[N] + F[N-1]
2090 LET N = N + 1
2100 PRINT F[N];", ";
2120 IF N < 50 THEN GOTO 2080









SmallTalk  -- classes and objects 

fib  
  ^ self <= 2    
      ifTrue: [ 1 ]
      ifFalse: [ (self - 2) fib + (self - 1) fib ]











Lisp  -- symbolic -- atoms(symbols) and lists 

(defun fibonacci (n &optional (a 0) (b 1) (acc ())) 
 (if (zerop n) 
    (nreverse acc)      
    (fibonacci (1- n) b (+ a b) (cons a acc))))










HyperTalk


on mouseUp
    put "100,100" into pos
    repeat with x = 1 to the number of card buttons
      set the location of card button x to pos
      add 15 to item 1 of pos
    end repeat
 end mouseUp



other influences-peers:

- ChatterBox Interpreter

- ToolBook

- ScriptX

- mTropolis

- JavaScript









What's happening recently?



ActionScript/Flash
  -- Retired
  https://theblog.adobe.com/adobe-flash-update/
  "...stop updating and distributing the Flash Player at the end of 2020..."








Java


- strong typed
- classes


Objective-C


Swift





Scratch


- For beginners
- Drag and drop blocks
Scratch 1.0
  Squeak -- dialect of Smalltalk
Scratch 2.0
  ActionScript
Scratch 3.0
  JavaScript





JavaScript


JavaScript
  ECMA-262 -- June 1997
  ECMAScript 3 -- December 1999
  ECMAScript 5 -- December 2009
  ECMAScript 2015 -- June 2015
    http://es6-features.org
  ECMAScript 2017 -- June 2017
nodejs


// fibonacci via recursion -| reclusive |-
function fib(n) {
  if (n <= 2) return 1;
  return fib(n-2) + fib(n-1);
}


// fibonacci iteration
function fib_iter(num) {
  var a = 1, b = 0, temp;
  while (num >= 0){
   temp = a;
   a = a + b;
   b = temp;
   num--;
  }
  return b;
}







Where to learn javascript





codehs.com




p5js.org