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* [TUHS] Re: What would early alternatives to C have been?
@ 2025-03-10  2:03 Douglas McIlroy
  2025-03-10  2:28 ` Charles H. Sauer
                   ` (2 more replies)
  0 siblings, 3 replies; 68+ messages in thread
From: Douglas McIlroy @ 2025-03-10  2:03 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: TUHS main list

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> everyone should write for their first compiler in Pascal for a
> simple language and no cheating using YACC.  You need to write the whole
> thing if you want to understand how parsing really works.

Yacc certainly makes it easier to write parsers for big grammars, but
it's far from cheating. You need to know a lot more about parsing to use
Yacc than you need to roll your own.

Hand parsing of a tiny grammar is almost a  necessary step on the way to
understanding Yacc. But I think hand-building the whole parser for a
compiler is unnecessary torture--like doing trigonometry with log tables.

Doug

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 68+ messages in thread
[parent not found: <174154718981.615624.15831772136951719489@minnie.tuhs.org>]
* [TUHS] What would early alternatives to C have been?
@ 2025-03-09  3:46 Dan Cross
  2025-03-09  6:14 ` [TUHS] " George Michaelson
                   ` (3 more replies)
  0 siblings, 4 replies; 68+ messages in thread
From: Dan Cross @ 2025-03-09  3:46 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: TUHS

As I mentioned in the discussion about C, it's easy to look back with
a modern perspective and cast aspersions on C. But this got me
thinking, what would possible alternatives have been? In the context
of the very late 1960s heading into the early 70s, and given the
constraints of the PDP-7 and early PDP-11s, what languages would one
consider for implementing a system like early Unix? Dennis's history
paper mentioned a very short-lived effort at Fortran, and I asked
about that a few years ago, but no one really remembered much about
it; I gather this was an experiment that lasted a few days or weeks
and was quickly abandoned. But what else?

My short list included PL/1, Algol/W, Fortran, and Pascal. Fortran was
already mentioned. I don't think PL/1 (or PL/I) could have fit on
those machines. Pascal was really targeted towards teaching and would
have required pretty extensive work to be usable. The big question
mark in my mind is Algol/W; how well known was it at the time? Was any
consideration for it made?

Obviously, the decision to go with BCPL (as the basis for B, which
beget C) was made and the rest is history. But I'm really curious
about how, in the research culture at the time, information about new
programming languages made its way through the community.

        - Dan C.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 68+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2025-03-12 16:35 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 68+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2025-03-10  2:03 [TUHS] Re: What would early alternatives to C have been? Douglas McIlroy
2025-03-10  2:28 ` Charles H. Sauer
2025-03-11  2:26   ` [TUHS] Re: uphill both ways, was " John Levine
2025-03-10  4:10 ` [TUHS] " Rob Pike
2025-03-10 15:19   ` John Cowan
2025-03-10 19:56     ` Dave Horsfall
2025-03-10 20:49     ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
2025-03-10 23:12       ` Marc Rochkind
2025-03-10 23:49         ` Clem Cole
2025-03-10 23:58           ` Marc Rochkind
2025-03-11  0:06           ` Ken Thompson
2025-03-11  1:35             ` Larry McVoy
2025-03-11  5:07               ` Ken Thompson
     [not found]         ` <CAKH6PiW8J8=uFbadUTSaC9VcLGUJMFZaSFWOFDyCM3MpMTSayw@mail.gmail.com <CAMP=X_mchJuVgdpc4-AYHASwEVzUcJXMmqSDv_UvX6y0o0+LBQ@mail.gmail.com>
2025-03-12  1:36           ` [TUHS] Re: parsing tools, was What would early alternatives John Levine
2025-03-12  2:22             ` Rich Salz
2025-03-12  3:35               ` Larry McVoy
2025-03-12 16:35               ` John R Levine
2025-03-12  5:11             ` Greg A. Woods
2025-03-11  5:15       ` [TUHS] Re: What would early alternatives to C have been? John Cowan
2025-03-10 15:12 ` Clem Cole
2025-03-10 15:24   ` Dan Cross
     [not found] <174154718981.615624.15831772136951719489@minnie.tuhs.org>
2025-03-09 21:01 ` Paul McJones
2025-03-10  0:38   ` Ken Thompson
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2025-03-09  3:46 [TUHS] " Dan Cross
2025-03-09  6:14 ` [TUHS] " George Michaelson
2025-03-09 12:29 ` Clem Cole
2025-03-09 13:18   ` G. Branden Robinson
2025-03-09 17:29     ` Clem Cole
2025-03-09 19:06       ` Ken Thompson
2025-03-09 19:41       ` G. Branden Robinson
2025-03-09 19:57         ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
2025-03-09 22:47         ` Dave Horsfall
2025-03-09 22:58         ` Clem Cole
2025-03-09 23:12           ` Larry McVoy
2025-03-09 23:18             ` Steve Nickolas
2025-03-09 23:39             ` Lawrence Stewart
2025-03-10  0:55               ` Stuff Received
2025-03-10  1:19                 ` Rob Pike
2025-03-10  3:06                 ` Larry McVoy
2025-03-10  9:12                   ` arnold
2025-03-10 14:41                     ` Larry McVoy
2025-03-10 14:52                       ` Clem Cole
2025-03-10 15:06                         ` Larry McVoy
2025-03-10 15:27                           ` Dan Cross
2025-03-10 15:46                             ` Larry McVoy
2025-03-10 15:47                             ` Warner Losh
2025-03-10 14:57                       ` Dan Cross
2025-03-10 15:09                         ` Larry McVoy
2025-03-10 16:30                           ` arnold
2025-03-10 18:18                             ` segaloco via TUHS
2025-03-10 18:39                             ` Stuff Received
2025-03-10 18:56                             ` Bakul Shah via TUHS
2025-03-10 23:25           ` Greg A. Woods
2025-03-10 23:35             ` segaloco via TUHS
2025-03-11  1:14               ` Dan Cross
2025-03-11  0:01             ` Clem Cole
2025-03-11  2:18             ` John Levine
2025-03-11  4:00               ` G. Branden Robinson
2025-03-11  4:14                 ` George Michaelson
2025-03-11 15:18                   ` Ron Natalie
2025-03-11 21:52                     ` Rob Pike
2025-03-09 20:13 ` John Levine
2025-03-09 20:35   ` Luther Johnson
2025-03-09 20:58     ` Clem Cole
2025-03-09 21:12       ` Luther Johnson
2025-03-09 22:57       ` Warner Losh
2025-03-10  1:51     ` John Levine
2025-03-10  2:54       ` Luther Johnson
2025-03-10  1:31 ` Bakul Shah via TUHS

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