TheBench

This is a tool to study variants in natural language (crosslingustic and intralinguistic diversity) using an invariant: binary composition. It uses two command relations in a grammar, one on syntactic command one on semantic command.

It can work in Linuxsphere, Macosphere and Window's Linux sub-atmosphere, for example in Window's WSL, MacOS, Arch, Debian and RedHat-based distributions.

These spheres are available as systems of various beginner-friendliness, in my opinion in the decreasing order of: latest MacOS, Ubuntu, Mint, Manjaro, Fedora, Kali, Suse, Pop_OS, CentOS, slackware etc.

I have been able to install and run TheBench fully automatically in top six of the platforms in this list. (I skipped Suse after installing it---see the bottom of this page for the explanation. I have not tried others.)

YOU NEED:

A terminal app. (All of the platforms listed above have one built-in.)

Window's native terminal is not the right one for TheBench, you'd need WSL in a windows system.

A software installer.

The standard installers in linux platforms are apt-get, dnf, pacman, yum or brew (macOS). These are the ones recognized by TheBench installer. They are built-in, depending on your platform, including WSL. See the note at the bottom for the absence of the rpm package manager.

You can start using WSL right off the shelf if you have Windows 10 upwards; check out Window's WSL.

As things Apple go these days, you might be left helpless about things we take for granted in programming, such as having public package managers. You need external help. Brew is an external installer for such goodies in MacOS, which you can get from brew home.

If you already have these utilities in your system, your versions are detected and used by TheBench. If not, the installer will complain and exit.

TO INSTALL:

Open a terminal, and change directory to where you want to install the tool. Then do:

git clone https://github.com/bozsahin/thebench

This will create thebench subdirectory in that directory.

In the terminal, and in thebench directory, do the following:

./bench.sh install mypython

where mypython is your python executable, for example python, python3.10 or python3.11, etc.

This will install TheBench, the Python libraries needed, and SBCL as Common Lisp, which is used by one of the python libraries and TheBench processor. You have also made the tool available from anywhere in your machine. You get python's library manager pip as well if you don't already have it (checked by the installer).

TO USE:

just do anywhere in your machine from a terminal app:

bench

Use UP and DOWN keys for command recall. TheBench keeps its specific command history in .thebenchhistory file at your home directory.

If you experience problems accessing bench this way, you are probably using a different shell. In this case, do bash, then do the above. Bash is available in all linux platforms, unlike other shells.

MULTI-USER SYSTEMS:

The installer is designed to set TheBench up in a personal computer, where you would have sudo access to install goodies like Common Lisp, which we need for the processor. If you work in a multi-user system, please ask your admin to install SBCL for you. Then TheBench install script will detect that and won't complain.

PYTHON UPGRADE NOTE:

If you want to move to another python for this tool, say python3.141519, and have that python installed, then re-run the install script FROM thebench home as

./bench.sh reset python3.141519

to change to that python. It will make sure its pip library manager is installed and refreshes TheBench libraries for that python.

If you've done python upgrades a few times, you will see in ~/.bashrc file multiple definitions of the alias bench. The last one counts. You can eliminate the earlier ones, but you don't have to.

TO DEVELOP A GRAMMAR:

Just use your favourite plain text editor and enter a grammar. Then follow help (the `? command') of TheBench to process it.

I suggest you develop grammars NOT in thebench folder to avoid override in upgrades.

TO UPGRADE:

in your thebench directory do

git pull

If git complains about conflicts, the usual suspect is local changes to bench.user.lisp file. Move it somewhere and do the upgrade, then put it back. The contents of this file is not crucial to the tool, but its presence is.

NOTES FOR THE DISCERNING TECHIE:

The installer creates some files and an alias to keep things organized and available from anywhere in the computer. There are THREE of them: (`~' points to your home directory in the linux world).

~/.thebenchhome This file contains the full path of TheBench repository in your installation.

~/.thebenchhistory This file contains history of your command use for easier recall.

bench This is an alias to reach TheBench from anywhere in your user space.

Please do not alter them manually.

The only surgical touch to your ~/.bashrc, which is where your bash variables are kept (usually), is to add the alias so that it is always available, interactive or not. We don't touch your PATH variable.

TO UNINSTALL:

./bench.sh uninstall

This will remove TheBench files and auxiliary directories. It won't touch your python or SBCL. To remove them, use your package manager. To clean your ~/.bashrc, just delete every line that mentions `bench'. (We don't do that automatically, not knowing whether you've changed this file yourself.)

SBCL, PYTHON AND PACKAGE MANAGER NOTES:

SBCL is the Common Lisp that the processor of TheBench uses. It is installed by the installer of TheBench if SBCL does not exist in your system. (This is checked by the installer.)

I have tried SBCL 1.x to 2.2.x with success in Macs, PCs and anything in between, for this tool.

Something happened to SBCL with 2.3.x releases, and TheBench hangs in the beginning. I couldn't locate what causes it, so I recommend downgrading your SBCL to something below 2.3.x to make sure this tool works. You don't need to do anything else.

Downgrading SBCL is unfortunately not automatic. You have to build an older binary using SBCL's install script. It is explained here. It works in Macs and linuxes.

Pythons below 3.8 won't even load TheBench.

You may have noticed the curious absence of rpm package manager support for install. Unlike yum, which is also available in rpm-based platforms, rpm is subscription-based. I find that quite un-linux, and non-transparent. So, for Suse and similar RH systems, install yum first before you install TheBench. Fedora is RH, but comes with yum, so no problems (and wise choice, lads and lasses, ditto CentOS).

--enjoy. Cem Bozsahin

My email is somewhere in the webosphere to google; just drop me an email if you need assistance.