Re: The joy of FORTRAN

Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:

On 2024-09-24, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
 

On Tue, 24 Sep 2024 18:24:02 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
 

So does PL/I (or is it PL/1 this week?), which allowed data structures
to be declared COBOL-style.

 
PL/I was IBM’s attempt at a Grand Unification of both “business” and
“scientific” programming in one language. If you thought C++ programming
was full of surprises when your program did unexpected things, PL/I
invented the whole genre of “surprise-ridden programming language”.

 
I had to write one PL/I program in a university CS class.  I think
I finally got it to work (unlike my single attempt at Algol).
One thing I noticed was that the compiler was a real resource
hog compared to any other language (except for Assembler G,
go figure) - which was a disincentive to use it on my meager
supply of computer centre funny money

That was one of the things holding up adoption. They fixed it with the
“Optimizing Compiler”, but it was a bit late by then. PL/I(F) was all
overlays. It kept the working text of the program in memory and made
I-don’t-know how many passes thru it. Trying to make it fit in a 64K
partition was a major problem.

 
    There are two things a man must do
    Before his life is done:
    Write two lines of APL
    And make the buggers run.
      -- Stan Kelly-Bootle: The Devil's DP Dictionary
 

--
Pete