Nial as a Prototyping Language


Mike Jenkins

Emeritus Professor, School of Computing 

Queen's University at Kingston

President, Nial Systems Limited

nialsys@kingston.net


based on a framework for a lecture on K by

Dennis Shasha

Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, NYU 




Quick Tour of Nial 


Unit 1: Basic language features


Atomic data types 


Lists 


Arrays of higher dimension


Operations


Reading and writing files


More on operations 


Unit 2: More advanced features

Like C, Nial has programming structures for conditional execution. 

NIal also has loops, though programs usually run faster and are shorter if you avoid using them. 

We discuss these features and the EACH transformers that often render loops unnecessary. 



Topics


Conditionals and loops 


EACH and related transformers


Using array addresses


Unit 3: Nial examples



Vector and matrix computations 


Building and using tables


Executing strings


Examples