From: Nemo Nusquam <cym224@gmail.com>
To: coff@minnie.tuhs.org
Subject: [COFF] Joys of PL/I [Was: Re: [TUHS] Book Recommendation]
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2021 13:54:52 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <e0f821bf-3bef-67e1-dca2-338180a5f156@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAKH6PiXtVetBZbyvOiWZFSTvNebSTEuaYkOoUx4KPg4wtdvN8g@mail.gmail.com>
On 2021-11-16 09:57, Douglas McIlroy wrote:
> The following remark stirred old memories. Apologies for straying off
> the path of TUHS.
>
>> I have gotten the impression that [PL/I] was a language that was beloved by no one.
> As I was a designer of PL/I, an implementer of EPL (the preliminary
> PL/I compiler used to build Multics), and author of the first PL/I
> program to appear in the ACM Collected Algorithms, it's a bit hard to
> admit that PL/I was "insignificant". I'm proud, though, of having
> conceived the SIGNAL statement, which pioneered exception handling,
> and the USES and SETS attributes, which unfortunately sank into
> oblivion. I also spurred Bud Lawson to invent -> for pointer-chasing.
> The former notation C(B(A)) became A->B->C. This was PL/I's gift to C.
>
> After the ACM program I never wrote another line of PL/I.
> Gratification finally came forty years on when I met a retired
> programmer who, unaware of my PL/I connection, volunteered that she
> had loved PL/I above all other programming languages.
My first language was actually PL/C (and the computer centre did not
charge for runs in PL/C). I needed to use PL/I for some thesis-related
work and ran into the JLC wall -- no issues with the former, many issues
with the latter. One of the support people, upon learning that I was
using PL/I, said: "PL/I's alright!"
N.
>
> Doug
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next parent reply other threads:[~2021-11-16 18:56 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 8+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
[not found] <CAKH6PiXtVetBZbyvOiWZFSTvNebSTEuaYkOoUx4KPg4wtdvN8g@mail.gmail.com>
2021-11-16 18:54 ` Nemo Nusquam [this message]
2021-11-16 19:40 ` Charles H Sauer
2021-11-16 20:20 ` Bakul Shah
[not found] ` <b355e6b8-720d-3078-d54a-2beb5ff79bd4@mhorton.net>
[not found] ` <CAEdTPBdVnPQMaDX0jOL81EkL1M7Eg=U4qWPwKMsr6SBc2Zz9vw@mail.gmail.com>
2021-11-23 15:23 ` [COFF] [TUHS] Book Recommendation Clem Cole
2021-11-24 0:38 ` [COFF] Self-hosting languages (was: Book Recommendation) Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2021-11-24 1:48 ` Brantley Coile
2021-11-23 19:40 ` [COFF] [TUHS] Book Recommendation Dan Cross
2021-11-24 1:57 ` [COFF] PL/1 [Was: Re: [TUHS] Book Recommendation] Nemo Nusquam
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