GENTUT15.TXT General Tutorial for Lisa GJ2 Fic3 -- the f3 language explained as a series of tiny essays Written by Aristo Tacoma with L.A.H. Date: 2011:3:3 Numbers 01..99 in this series of gentutNN are circulated as needed, when more recently written articles make earlier ones unnecessary. Each article: copyright author, further distribution license the usual www.yoga4d.org/cfdl.txt. Kids: there are other tutorials for you. But you should find pieces here and there which are easy to read. In B9, use the search function, CTR-F or F4 within each. Beware ;-) This is written as a flow, quickly, and wherever there is a reference to concrete f3 syntax, it may have been written from memory and so not every word is guaranteed to be written here exactly correct. Search up with the CTR-F and repeated search CTR-L in the F3DOCS manual or in example programs if things here are not clear enough or precise enough for your present purposes. Good luck!!! ***HOW TO TOTALLY AND ALWAYS AVOID RECURSION It is the depth of my thesis that the human mind must appreciate infinity as a warm, embracing reality out of which the finiteness emerges, without trying to be greedy about any form whatsoever of hubris-like attempt (or any other attempt) to systematize or conceptualise infinity, nor -- and it is here it get complex -- assert that it is obvious and clear where finiteness does exist and where it glides over to infinity, when 'et cetera' has been applied. This I have spoken of elsewhere. It follows that it is a kind of virtue, when we program, that we speak in humble terms whenever we do a loop, which has some vague similarities in meaning with what we mean by 'et cetera' in English. To speak in humble terms means that we relate to a range where we can, instead of relating to something which is undefined as to upper end, for "undefined" easily becomes "infinite". Since the number which we call basis (the zero) has an affinity to infinity, as we find that division on numbers which are very small lead to very large numbers, it is the practise, in F3 (unlike for instance the Linux-language called by the letter "C"), to start with what we call dance (the one), and regard matrix positions holding basis as not yet initiated -- quite often, in any case. Also, when a structure such as a matrix is defined, it is asserted with a certain amount of rows and columns, and it is here we typically put documents (text files) -- not in some kind of open-ended array. This is a certain strategy of the language to decrease tendencies to any hubris or sloppiness with regard to how we think about infinity. It is also clear that while the UNCOMPUTER, the source of attention in the mind, has a measure of natural, self-controlled self-reference, a mechanical item like a computer has sequential actions which are taking place consciously in a finiteness context, and in particular, as I have made very clear that is the natural stance to take, the psychologically right size of this finiteness -- the 32-bit number (about plus minus two billion) -- and arrays of such numbers again addressed by means of such numbers, for each computer (while there might be more computers in the universe than that which can be arranged according to 32-bit numbers without groupings in a hierarchy constituting a larger number, speaking metaphysically). As such, it must be entirely clear that a computer program must not be fathomed under the delusion that any self-reference can occur for real expressed by the syntax of the language. It would therefore be rediculous to engage in functions which call themselves, although it is technically possible to make, e.g. ((DATA WAIT-FUNC-HOUSE )) (LET WAIT-FUNC BE (( )) (( (( KEYToUCH = EXIT === )) (( }Hi!} => POPS )) (( 500 => GOODPAUSE )) (( WAIT-FUNC-HOUSE >>> => HYPERCONNECT )) )) OK) (( :WAIT-FUNC => ? WAIT-FUNC-HOUSE <