SIMPOL Documentation

Most of the operators used in SIMPOL should look familiar to anyone who may have programmed in BASIC, C, C++, Java, or any of a number of programming languages. Some of the operators are specific to SIMPOL and need to be looked at more closely, in part because the very existence of these operators is a guide to effectively using and also to understanding the language itself. Just as it is essentially impossible to learn a human language without learning something of the culture that both formed and is formed by the language, a programming language embodies a specific approach to solving problems that may suit some people but not necessarily everyone, or it may embody an approach to a certain class of problem that is not as well addressed by other tools. The approach that is used in the language will then dictate the types of semantic devices that are necessary to support the creation of effective programs using the language.

The operators (and operations) in a language can be divided into a number of categories: assignment, arithmetic, comparison, logical, and object operators. Each of these will be discussed in detail in the sections that follow.