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From: Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: The joy of FORTRAN
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2024 17:52:00 -0700
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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