Path: ...!news.misty.com!weretis.net!feeder9.news.weretis.net!panix!.POSTED.2602:f977:0:1::5!not-for-mail From: Rich Alderson Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,alt.folklore.computers Subject: TeX and Pascal [was Re: The joy of FORTRAN] Followup-To: alt.folklore.computers Date: 25 Sep 2024 15:18:22 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC Lines: 37 Sender: alderson+news@panix5.panix.com Message-ID: References: <5mqdnZuGq4lgwm_7nZ2dnZfqnPSdnZ2d@earthlink.com> <1r0e6u9.1tubjrt1kapeluN%snipeco.2@gmail.com> <20240925083451.00003205@gmail.com> Injection-Info: reader1.panix.com; posting-host="2602:f977:0:1::5"; logging-data="21910"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@panix.com" X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 22.3 Bytes: 3067 ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) writes: > John Ames wrote or quoted: >> That's a marvelous description, although it fails to really capture the >> perversity of things like array-size-as-type-distinction; when a man >> introduces language features that practically every single third-party >> implementor has to provide their own workaround for, you know you've >> found a Truly Special Genius. > Dudes, when Knuth was on the hunt for a language to whip > up TeX back in the day, he figured Pascal was the cream of > the crop among his options. You got to put that language in > perspective and see it through the lens of its time! Pascal was used in the rewrite (2nd version), part of his Literate Programming thing. The original was written in SAIL (an Algol-60 derivative created at SAIL, the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory). The same thing was true of METAFONT, first version in SAIL, second in Pascal. DEK used Pascal because it was spreading throughout the computing world, across tons of different architectures. (According to DEK, in his presentation on Literate Programming at SHARE in San Francisco.) The thing was, neither was written in "pure Pascal", but rather in his Literate Programming formulation in which actual Pascal code was intertwined with TeX documentation for the program being written. The resulting source was then run through either of two preprocessor programs, tangle (which stripped the Tex and wrote out a Pascal source without linebreaks or human comfortable indentation) and weave (which made the Pascal code acceptable to a TeX processor). Someone else very quickly created C versions of the preprocessors, and the modern TeX world was born. -- Rich Alderson news@alderson.users.panix.com Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur, omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus. --Galen