On the relative efficiencies of context-free grammar
Communications of the ACM
LISP 1.5 Programmer's Manual
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A RECENT TREND of great potential importance is the increased on-line use of digital computers to permit a close coupling of user and machine in solving a wide variety of problems. Program debugging, theorem proving, mechanical design, architectural design, and mathematical manipulation are among the areas in which the use of such on-line techniques has already been attempted. With the spread of large-scale time-sharing systems, which are intended to make extensive usage of this type economically feasible, this approach will unquestionably be extended to many other areas. In this paper we shall not be concerned with such questions as the relative merits of various formal models of syntax. Rather, taking the extensive use of context-free grammars as evidence of their presently-established utility to at least some class of users, our purpose is to describe a program which permits the convenient on-line use of a digital computer as an aid in the modification and testing of such grammars. Both the structure and the use of the program are described in detail in the following sections.