Motion is a virtual machine that uses capability objects called "motes" as its base type -- instead of binary words. A mote may be referenced by its mote identifier, a hard-to-guess character string. "mote identifier" is shortened to "mote id." The op-codes, themselves motes, recognized by motion at any moment, depend on the history of the machine. The syntax of Motion is like the syntax of a machine language: OP ARG* where the number of arguments required depends on the operation. Interacting with the Motion virtual machine is done by passing messages to it and receiving the resulting responses. The responses are white-space joined results of all motes presented in the message. every whitespace-delimited token in a message must be either a mote identifier or a symbol that appears in the current lexicon. Sometimes, presentation of a single identifier is sufficient. Sometimes, the initial mote id takes arguments. Sometimes, the initial mote identifier establishes a dictionary of named motes for use in the rest of the message. Sometimes, the initial mote both takes arguments and establishes a dictionary. Motes are persistent between messages, as long as they are "sponsored" by another mote. Every motes has a type. Some motes represent "motion adapters" which provide functionality not available in the motion language. Here is a list of names in the default dictionary, and what they mean: MOTE allocates a general purpose mote and returns it NAME [name] [mote] writes [name] into the current dictionary as an alias for [mote]. NEWMOTE [name] is syntactic sugar that expands to NAME [name] MOTE SETMOTE [mote] [string] use this to store a string in a mote FETCHMOTE [mote] use this to recover the string stored in a mote STRING [\S+] interpret the non-whitespace sequence as a string instead of looking it up in the dictionary STORE [mote] [key] [value] use this to store a value in a mote, under a string key FETCH [mote] [key] use this to recover a value stored with STORE ASTORE [mote] [whole number] [value] use this to store a value in a mote, under a whole number index AFETCH [mote] [whole number] use this to recover a value stored with ASTORE NOTHING a no-op mote, which does not add anything to the response but does fill an argument slot PLACEHOLDER in a sequence definition, PLACEHOLDER will be filled with an argument GENSYM generate a hard-to-guess symbol that is not a mote id HEREDOC [token] [...] [token] use this to create a string containing whitespace PERFORM [sequence-mote] [arg]* invoke a sequence SEQUENCE [token] [...] [token] define a sequence mote using the current dictionary SAFE [token list] BEGIN [...] END only the names enumerated in the token list are available in the bodyof this sequence copyright 2008,2009,2010,2011,2012 David Nicol / TipJar LLC This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons 444 Castro Street, Suite 900 Mountain View, California 94041 USA