Eval

    Note to orst administrator: this is an upgrade of
    the app Eval.tar.Z, which currently resides in 
    /pub/next/sources/tools/Eval.tar.Z.  Please replace
    that version with Eval3.3.tar.Z.  Thanks,
        glen

Eval is a programming environment which brings to ObjC
much of the flexibility and immediacy of integrated
programming systems often associated with SmallTalk and Lisp.
Although Eval **feels** like an interpreter, it's actually
an incremental compiler built on NeXT's ObjC compiler and
run-time system.  This is version 3.3 of Eval: it represents
a considerable enhancement over all previous releases.
 
In addition to functioning as a stand-alone program, Eval
provides a service to other programs through the Services
menu, making its functionality available to any application
which can write ascii to the pasteboard. This allows you
to select text in  Edit, Mail, NewsGrazer, and so on, and
execute that text as ObjC or PostScript.

Eval provides windows, called Code Browsers, which are
designed for editing ObjC program text. Text in a Code
Browser is automatically classified into one of 7 categories
(comment, keyword, method definition, etc.), and each category
is displayed with its own user-definable font, size, and color.

In sum, Eval  provides the following  functions:

o Compile, load, execute, and unload  the current selection
  as ObjC code. 
o Compile and  load the current selection as an ObjC class
  or classes. 
o Dynamically load from disk any archive (library, i.e. .a file),
  object module (.o file), or compile and load any ObjC implementation
  file (.m file).
o Create an interface definition file (.h file) from the
  current selection.
o Interpret the current selection as PostScript. 
o Edit code in Code Browsers, automatically displaying ObjC reserved
  words, comments, strings, and so on, using user-definable fonts, sizes,
  and colors, while displaying an index of all method definitions
  in a separate scrolling browser.

Eval provides extensive on-line NeXTSTEP-style help.  The best way to
get going with Eval is to work through the on-line tutorials on evaluation
and loading, sections 2.1 and 3.1 respectively.

Eval is freeware, and is distributed in source code form only.  You need
NeXTSTEP developer not only to build Eval, but to run it is well.  It has
been tested under 3.2 black and white, and 3.3 for Moto, Intel, HP, and 
Sparc.

Glen Diener
grd@ccrma.stanford.edu
May 11, 1995

