ASTL-0.4
========

This directory contains an implementation of a situation theory based
language called ASTL.  This implementation of ASTL is free software;
you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU
General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
either version 1, or (at your option) any later version.

Version: ASTL-0.4  
Author:  Alan W Black (awb@ed.ac.uk will be forwarded)
Date:    Mar 1993

See "A Situation Theoretic approach to computational Semantics" for
more details.  This PhD thesis is also available as a DYANA technical
report from HCRC, University of Edinburgh, 2 Buccleuch Place,
Edinburgh, EH8 9NW.

Notes
=====

The system is written in Common Lisp and has been tried and tested
in akcl and CMUCL.  It probably works in other Common Lisp systems
(though it may require minor tweaking).  The code is still rather
alpha.  There are still some problems, some are identified in 
the file BUGS.  The ideas of abstractions are not yet fully 
implemented though som ecode has been added to recognize them
in the syntax.  I have yet to fix that.  The whole system is
far too slow and needs some serious thinking to make it faster
(which I believe is possible).  Hopefully I will have time
to write later versions.   --- awb

Running the system
==================

*.lisp files are the source while *.st files are ASTL description
files.

To run the system.  Check the directory settings in astl.lsp first
then 

    (load "astl")
    (compit)      ;; if the system needs compiled
    (loadit)      ;; to load in the compiled version
    (astl)        ;; to start top level

So far the system has only been tested in akcl though it should
work in other Common Lisps (I will check it with Allegro and CMUCL
soon)

Editing descriptions
====================

astl-mode.el is an GNU emacs mode for editing ASTL description files.
It is basically a modification of emacs lisp mode.  To use it put
astl-mode.el somewhere in you emacs load-path then add the
following to your .emacs

(autoload 'astl-mode "astl-mode" "Mode for editing ASTL files." t)
(setq auto-mode-alist 
	    (append '(("\\.st$" . astl-mode)) auto-mode-alist))


Files
=====

    DEMO       how load the system and run a demo
    *.st       astl description files (user's specifications)
    th-*.st    example descriptions that are in my thesis
    astl.lsp   top level lisp function
    *.lisp     the lisp source files
    BUGS       known bugs
    astl-mode.el  Emacs mode for astl description files



Alan W Black (awb@ed.ac.uk mail will be forwarded to wherever I am)
Mar 15 1993 
Centre for Cognitive Science
University of Edinburgh
2 Buccleuch Place
Edinburgh EH8 9LW