Mathematical Structure of Nonarithmetic Data Processing Procedures
Journal of the ACM (JACM)
A Method for Obtaining Specific Values of Compiling-Parameter Functions
Journal of the ACM (JACM)
An information algebra: phase 1 report—language structure group of the CODASYL development committee
Communications of the ACM
Translation of Decision Tables
ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR)
An interrupt based organization for management information systems
Communications of the ACM
Requirements statement language principles for automatic programming
ACM '74 Proceedings of the 1974 annual conference - Volume 1
A planning and cost allocation procedure for computer system management
SICOSIM3 Proceedings of the third annual symposium on SIGCOSIM: Major issues confronting managers of computer resources
A survey of languages for stating requirements for computer-based information systems
AFIPS '72 (Fall, part II) Proceedings of the December 5-7, 1972, fall joint computer conference, part II
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The structure of a digital computer programming language which covers a wide class of business and file processing applications is presented. Such a structure, based on identifying and incorporating into a compiler the aspects common to all processes of such class, permits writing extremely compact programs, even for comparatively complex applications, in terms of tables of control expressions which express only information characteristic of the particular application. Furthermore, local changes of a process (e.g. changes affecting only one of the output files involved) can be effected by local modifications in the program (e.g. modification of only one entry of the tables). This structure also allows for inexpensive preparation of loading-speed compilers which translate the source programs into efficient machine codes.The approach adopted here departs from conventional mechanical language design philosophies. It stresses the structural analysis of the class of processes to be represented in the languages, as opposed to emphasizing formal (i.e., contents-independent) syntactical definitions. It relies exclusively on nonprocedural representation of processes as sets (tables) of relations between data and results (there are no control statements such as GO TO, etc.), instead of using procedure descriptions (which are one-to-one translations of flowcharts). Here an invariant pattern of procedure is identified as characteristic of the class of all batch file processes.