Motion is a virtual machine that uses capability objects
called "motes" as its base type -- instead of binary words.

A mote may be referenced by its mote identifier, a hard-to-guess character string.


"mote identifier" is shortened to "mote id."


The op-codes, themselves motes, recognized by motion at any moment,
depend on the history of the machine.

The syntax of Motion is like the syntax of a machine language:

OP ARG*

where the number of arguments required depends on the operation.

Interacting with the Motion virtual machine is done by passing messages
to it and receiving the resulting responses. The responses are white-space joined results of all motes presented in the message.

every whitespace-delimited token in a message must be either a mote identifier
or a symbol that appears in the current lexicon.

Sometimes, presentation of a single identifier is sufficient.

Sometimes, the initial mote id takes arguments.

Sometimes, the initial mote identifier establishes a dictionary of
named motes for use in the rest of the message.

Sometimes, the initial mote both takes arguments and establishes a dictionary.

Motes are persistent between messages, as long as they are "sponsored" by
another mote.

Every motes has a type.

Some motes represent "motion adapters" which provide functionality not
available in the motion language.


Here is a list of names in the default dictionary, and what they mean:

MOTE   allocates a general purpose mote and returns it

NAME [name] [mote] writes [name] into the current dictionary as an alias
for [mote].

NEWMOTE [name] is syntactic sugar that expands to NAME [name] MOTE

SETMOTE [mote] [string] use this to store a string in a mote

FETCHMOTE [mote] use this to recover the string stored in a mote

STRING [\S+] interpret the non-whitespace sequence as a string instead of looking it up in the dictionary

STORE [mote] [key] [value] use this to store a value in a mote, under a string key

FETCH [mote] [key] use this to recover a value stored with STORE

ASTORE [mote] [whole number] [value] use this to store a value in a mote, under a whole number index
AFETCH [mote] [whole number] use this to recover a value stored with ASTORE

NOTHING a no-op mote, which does not add anything to the response but does fill an argument slot

PLACEHOLDER in a sequence definition, PLACEHOLDER will be filled with an argument

GENSYM generate a hard-to-guess symbol that is not a mote id

HEREDOC [token] [...] [token] use this to create a string containing whitespace

PERFORM [sequence-mote] [arg]* invoke a sequence

SEQUENCE [token] [...] [token] define a sequence mote using the current dictionary

SAFE [token list] BEGIN [...] END only the names enumerated in the token list are available in the bodyof this sequence






copyright 2008,2009,2010,2011,2012 David Nicol / TipJar LLC

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