Reference and data construction in boxer

Abstract

Boxer is an integrated computational environment encompassing a broad range of functionality, from programming to text editing, interactive graphics and data base activity. It is currently in the process of design and implementation at the University of California, Berkeley, and is intended largely for educational computing at all levels, from early elementary school into university. This note describes features from two sets of mechanisms in Boxer: The first specifies how one can refer to computational objects in Boxer, and the second specifies how one constructs compound objects. The common thread is that both of these exemplify important tradeoffs that one must make in designing systems for unsophisticated users, for example, easing the first stages of learning at the cost of formal simplicity of the system as perceived by experts.

This work is supported by the National Science Foundation under grant numbers MDR-85-96025 and MDR-86-42177.