Squirrel source code

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Hi all

Those of us around back in the BeOS era will remember a language named Squirrel. It was a LOGO dialect, quite easy to learn and able to create BeOS GUI apps. Squirrel still runs, more or less, on Haiku, but not well enough for production purposes. You actually have to set your system clock back 20 years to make it run :grin:

The good news is that I have made contact with the original author, Jean-Louis Villecroze. He still has the source code and would be happy to donate it to the project - exact license to be determined. That would give us an easy-to-learn programming environment for beginners. I recall there was at least one biggish program written in Squirrel at the time (BeMegaPhone?)

Now before I go and put it on HaikuArchives, thereā€™s one issue to be discussed. Since Squirrel was around a new language also called Squirrel has come into existence (http://www.squirrel-lang.org/) and (1) we might want to port that some day (2) letā€™s avoid confusion. So we would want to rename this one. GroundSquirrel? Chipmunk? Marmot? As a nod to tradition and heritage I would suggest staying with the ā€œrodentā€ theme. Villecroze is OK with the idea of renaming it. It would mean rewriting the manuals, I suppose.

Actually working on this would be above my pay grade, sorry. I just happened to recognize Villecrozeā€™s name on a social network and dropped him a line. Iā€™m happy to maintain the contact, but if @waddlesplash, @humdinger or @PulkoMandy would rather make contact with him directly, that might actually be better. you can reach him at jeanlouis (dot) villecroze (at) gmail (dot) com

OK guys, what do you think?

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One can eventually use the year to distinguish: Squirrel1997 for instance.

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It is fortunate that Villecroze still had the source code around and that Michel remember the contribution.

Now, about the nameā€¦

The Squirrel coded by Villecroze is a LOGO dialect which likely incorporates constructs/features unique to BeOS (and by extension Haiku). Maybe BeSquirrel would do and provide a nod to its heritage?

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Chipmunk sounds nice; it doesnā€™t look like anything uses it. BeSquirrel sounds ok too, I guess.

If youā€™re already in contact with him, then I think it makes the most sense for you to continue to contact him, and once you get the source code just forward it to me and I can import it into HaikuArchives and get it compiling on Haiku.

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Some other alternatives for naming:
sqrrl
sqrl
bsqrl
bsqrrl
jvls
JVLSquirrel

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Hello Michael! Just to avoid some bots that recollects email address from the web to send spam, maybe could mask his mail adress to something like ā€˜jeanlouis.villecroze - {at} - gmail {dot} comā€™

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Done.

Also, ā€œSquirrel 97ā€ sounds fine (like FORTRAN 90 :p). But Iā€™m fine with other names too.

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OK, thanks for the vote of confidence. Iā€™ll get back to him and suggest Squirrel97 and take it from there.

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Villecroze suggests Squirrel99, as that is when he did most of the work. Heā€™s digging through his archives and I will have it up on HaikuArchives ASAP.

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