Report Number: CS-TR-78-663
Institution: Stanford University, Department of Computer Science
Title: Software restyling in graphics and programming languages
Author: Grosse, Eric H.
Date: September 1978
Abstract: The value of large software products can be cheaply increased by adding restyled interfaces that attract new users. As examples of this approach, a set of graphics primitives and a language precompiler for scientific computation are described. These two systems include a general user-defined coordinate system instead of numerous system settings, indention to specify block structure, a modified indexing convention for array parameters, a syntax for n-and-a-half-times-'round loops, and engineering format for real constants; most of all, they strive to be as small as possible.
http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/cs/tr/78/663/CS-TR-78-663.pdf