The Gamma language is an interpreter, a high-level programming language that has been designed and optimized to reduce the time required for building applications. It has extensions that support HTTP and MySQL.

With a Gamma program a user can quickly implement algorithms that are far harder to express in other languages such as C. The Gamma language lets the developer take advantage of many time-saving features such as memory management and improved GUI support. These features, coupled with the ability to fully interact with and debug programs as they run, mean that developers can build, test and refine applications in a shorter time frame than when using other development platforms.

The Gamma language is an improved and expanded version of our previous Slang Programming Language for QNX and Photon. The Gamma language was originally available on QNX 4, QNX 6 and Linux, and is now only used with Cogent DataHub software in Microsoft Windows.

The implementation of the Gamma language is based on a powerful SCADALisp engine. SCADALisp is a dialect of the Lisp programming language which has been optimized for performance and memory usage, and enhanced with a number of internal functions. All references in this manual to Lisp are in fact to the SCADALisp dialect of Lisp.

You could say the Gamma object language is Lisp, just like Assembler is the object language for C. Knowing Lisp is not a requirement for using the Gamma language, but it can be helpful. All necessary information on Lisp and how it relates to the Gamma language is in the Input and Output chapter of this guide.

The syntax of a Gamma program is very similar to C, so programmers familiar with C can start programming in the Gamma language almost immediately. Knowledge of pointers and memory allocation is not necessary for writing Gamma scripts or programs.