From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.1 (2015-04-28) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.1 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [45.79.103.53]) by inbox.vuxu.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id a8f853ea for ; Sun, 2 Sep 2018 21:47:27 +0000 (UTC) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id E9084A1E1D; Mon, 3 Sep 2018 07:47:25 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8236CA1A81; Mon, 3 Sep 2018 07:47:09 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 52C55A1A81; Mon, 3 Sep 2018 07:47:07 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail.cs.Dartmouth.EDU (mail.cs.dartmouth.edu [129.170.212.100]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id C2A7DA1A66 for ; Mon, 3 Sep 2018 07:47:04 +1000 (AEST) Received: from tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU (tahoe.cs.dartmouth.edu [129.170.212.20]) by mail.cs.Dartmouth.EDU (8.15.2/8.15.2) with ESMTPS id w82Ll1TM002480 (version=TLSv1.2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=NO); Sun, 2 Sep 2018 17:47:01 -0400 Received: from tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU (8.15.2/8.14.3) with ESMTP id w82Ll16t034543; Sun, 2 Sep 2018 17:47:01 -0400 Received: (from doug@localhost) by tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU (8.15.2/8.15.2/Submit) id w82Ll1nu034542; Sun, 2 Sep 2018 17:47:01 -0400 From: Doug McIlroy Message-Id: <201809022147.w82Ll1nu034542@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU> Date: Sun, 02 Sep 2018 17:47:01 -0400 To: tuhs@tuhs.org, jpl.jpl@gmail.com User-Agent: Heirloom mailx 12.5 7/5/10 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [TUHS] Public access multics X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" Caveat: As a member of the PL/I committee, and the person who brought the new and unimplemented language to the attention of Multics, let a disastrous contract for a compiler, and finally helped cobble together a rudimentary compiler that got the project off the ground, I am not exactly an unbiased observer. A ground tenet of Multics was that it would be programmed in a higher level language. A subsidiary requirement, which was generally agreed upon, was language-level access to the logical operators and address manipulation inherent in the hardware. No widely used language of the time met this requirement. And they didn't want to get sidetracked into language design. Discussions finally boiled down to AED, developed at MIT by Doug Ross, and PL/I. Ross was a brilliant software innovator with a mystical outlook that made it difficult to distinguish his vision of what could be done from what actually existed. AED was definitely a moving target. By contrast PL/I had a written spec, so you knew exactly what could be done in it, though not how well the compiler would do it. PL/I was very big; we deliberately (and explicitly) omitted about half the spec. The remainder was definitely seen as a "plausible systems programming language". >From the perspective of the time, why do you think the contrary? Doug