A problem oriented graphic language

Abstract

There are several “subroutine packages” available today which may be used by programmers to obtain graphical output from computers. These subroutine packages are difficult for the non-programmer to use since he must write an executive program to make the appropriate calls to these subroutines to realize the desired results. There are individuals at all educational levels in most every discipline who are eager to use the computer, but who do not wish to get involved with any extensive programming. The language to be presented here is user-oriented. The formal syntactic definition of the language will be given using Backus-Naur Form. The definition will be presented in a manner which progresses from the larger syntactic units to the smaller syntactic units. Some of the semantic and pragmatic considerations which help to motivate the language will be interspersed throughout the formal definition. Finally, two illustrations will be presented to help draw the ideas together.