From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI, NICE_REPLY_A,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 24700 invoked from network); 15 Dec 2020 13:05:01 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (45.79.103.53) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 15 Dec 2020 13:05:01 -0000 Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id F32669C7FE; Tue, 15 Dec 2020 23:04:56 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 53A919C78F; Tue, 15 Dec 2020 23:04:27 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 5768D9C78F; Tue, 15 Dec 2020 23:04:23 +1000 (AEST) Received: from kvm5.telegraphics.com.au (kvm5.telegraphics.com.au [98.124.60.144]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 97FFF944D8 for ; Tue, 15 Dec 2020 23:04:22 +1000 (AEST) Received: from [10.210.249.17] (unknown [10.210.249.17]) by kvm5.telegraphics.com.au (Postfix) with ESMTP id AF72D228C8 for ; Tue, 15 Dec 2020 08:04:21 -0500 (EST) To: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org References: From: Toby Thain Message-ID: Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2020 08:04:21 -0500 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.14; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/78.5.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Language: en-US Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [TUHS] Knuth and Pascal (was "Were cron and at ...") X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 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" On 2020-12-15 6:45 a.m., M Douglas McIlroy wrote: > Off topic, but too much fun to pass up. > >>> You wrote your algorithm in Pascal, debugged it, and then rewrote it in your favourite language (in my case, ALGOL-W). > >> Now why didn't Don Knuth think of that for TeX? He did even more than that, inventing literate programming and tools for it, so that he could write in a Pascal-like language enhanced according to his preferences and beliefs about program exposition to humans. Because the output of his tools was standard Pascal, Tex and METAFONT were easily and widely ported. --Toby > > I'm glad he didn't. He might have written it in Mix. Knuth once said > he didn't believe in higher-level languages. Of course he knew more > about them than anybody else and was CACM's associate editor for the > subject--like a minister who doesn't believe in God. > > Doug >