The Gump Front-End Generator (Oz 2.0)

The Idea

The Gump is a fictional `creature' in the children's novel ``The Marvelous Land of Oz'' by L. Frank Baum, sequel to ``The Wonderful Wizard of Oz''. It is a living flying machine assembled by the main characters from individually selected materials. The Tin Woodman fastens a gump's head to one end of the machine, explaining that it ``will show which is the front end of the Thing.''


Illustration by Andreas Schoch

Gump is also the name of the specification language and tool described on this web page. Like the gump's head in the novel, the language is used to specify front-ends in Oz, in this case the lexical and phrase structure of a language. The tool is the ``Powder of Life'' that generates executable programs (Oz classes) from such specifications.

Installation

Binaries for some platforms are available for download. You have to download the file gump-2.0.4-common.tar.gz as well as the platform-dependent file corresponding to your platform. Just go to the directory where your Oz is installed and unpack the archives there. If you need Gump for a platform that is not yet supported, please E-Mail us and we will provide you with the required binaries.

Further Information

How to use the Gump Front-End Generator is described in the Gump User's Manual.


Leif Kornstaedt