From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: dave@horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2017 01:04:39 +1000 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] Array index history In-Reply-To: <40F0B6B0-73C3-48CD-B75F-84CA6095433B@cheswick.com> References: <201706080227.v582R5D9056395@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU> <40F0B6B0-73C3-48CD-B75F-84CA6095433B@cheswick.com> Message-ID: Just to diverge from this thread a little, it probably isn't all that remarkable that programming languages tend to reflect the hardware for which they were designed. Thus, for example, we have the C construct: do { ... } while (--i); which translated right into the PDP-11's "SOB" instruction (and reminiscent of FORTRAN's insistence that DO loops are run at least once (there was a CACM article about that once; anyone have a pointer to it?)). And of course the afore-mentioned FORTRAN, which really reflects the underlying IBM 70x architecture (shudder). I know that Burroughs' iron ran ALGOL; I shudder to think of any box that runs native PERL... Speaking of Burroughs (which we weren't), their OS was MCP (Master Control Program) which we the great unwashed called Male Chauvinist Pig, no doubt to their distress :-) Any other examples of poor acronyms designed by ignorant marketoids? -- Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU) "Those who don't understand security will suffer."