HicEst: Windows IDE programming tool with interpreter and compiler for technical/scientific numerics and text applications

• abstract

  • an integrated development environment programming tool (IDE) for Windows
  • an interpreter and incremental compiler
  • for technical or scientific numerics and text applications
  • small, fast, intuitive and easy to learn
  • designed for immediate results during development of technical or scientific applications
  • not a point-and-click program, but point-and-click programs are easily created
  • not a new language again: scripts are written in a Fortran 90 subset-superset
• a

  screenshot

  :
  1. complete script is shown in the upper figure. A tooltip displays the essential info on the symbol at the cursor position.
  2. The second window is created in line 5 and painted in lines 5 and 9
  

• what it does

  • Numerics
  • String handling
  • Scientific graphics
  • Input/output
  • context-sensitive help (HelpOnHelp)
  • an interactive graphical user interface (GUI)
  • single step and trace mode for debugging
  • run mode for production

• simply start

  (HowToStart)
  • type a statement
  • HicEst compiles incrementally
  • result is immediately displayed
  • edit the statement if needed
  • when done continue in run mode
  • break execution any time to edit again
  • just keep changing the script until you like the result
  • on exit the script is stored in a plain text file, standard filename suffix is "hic"

• why use it

  • top priority is to put together applications at short notice and to minimize coding efforts
  • designed for immediate results during development of technical or scientific applications
  • no need to write any GUI code or to get into tedious system details
  • no special developer platform required
  • easy experimenting when the problem is not yet well understood
  • write, debug, run, service: All from the same window, effective instantaneously at any time
  • quick-and-dirty programs
  • well structured and documented programs with 1000s of lines
  • easy calls to dynamically linked user-written DLLs
  • scripts can be chained or run in parallel
  • most things can be done as in other languages, but there are numerous 1-statement calls to intrinsic functions covering most standard tasks of everyday scientific and engineering tasks like

• for whom

  • programmers who prefer to test their ideas on the spot without spending lots of time to learn a new language
  • familiarity with another language such as Java, Basic, or C is good, but not a prerequisite. Fortran is perfect. You should have no particular problems if HicEst is your first computer language
• the

  hello world

  program
  • in a message box:
    • WRITE(Message="!") "Hello world" ! with the "!" icon and a system sound
  • or in a dialog box:
    • DLG(Title="Hello world", Button="OK") ! another 1-line script
  • or in a new window:
    • WINDOW(WINdowhandle=test, Title="Hello world") ! as the title caption
    • WRITE(WIN=test, PoinT=80, Align="Center, VertCenter") "Hello world" ! real big

• areas of use

  . Some applications we have heard of are in the fields of
  • chemical engineering and physical chemistry
  • numerical simulation and process control
  • home banking
  • fuzzy logic based real estate management
  • data collection and retrieval systems
  • and of course this XHTML/CSS documentation is completely edited and maintained by a HicEst script. It makes heavy use of the DLG(Edit=thisdocument, ...) and the EDIT(Text=thisdocument, ...) functions.