From: "Thomas Paulsen" <thomas.paulsen@firemail.de>
To: "Mary Ann Horton" <mah@mhorton.net>
Cc: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Book Recommendation
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2021 22:54:26 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <d5c635f412e50be3740bf13c2380d799@firemail.de> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <b355e6b8-720d-3078-d54a-2beb5ff79bd4@mhorton.net>
Hi,
I remember that PL-1 was regarded in the 70-80ths as a superior programming language, incorporating the best concepts of the languages Mary enumerated. There even was a PL-1 inspired SPL language by siemens for the bs2000 mainframe os including bit fields etc. for system programming like C. Large parts of the start-amadeus ticketing-software were written in SPL. Thus PL-1 and its derivates were very high-ranked in the 70ths and 80ths, regarded as the ultimate ratio of the programming languages by many mainframe experts in those days.
I mean we are now entering the mainframe horizon, totally different to our UNIX and C mini computer, workstation and PC world we all are firm with.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PL/I was my favorite mainframe programming language my last two years as
an undergrad. I liked how it incorporated ideas from FORTRAN, ALGOL, and
COBOL. My student job was to enhance a PL/I package for a History professor.
As a grad student in 1976, my first job as a TA was to teach PL/I to
undergrads. There were a lot of business students in the class. We
thought PL/I was likely to be the future of business programming, as a
better alternative to COBOL.
I was turned on to V6 UNIX and C in 1977, and I forgot all about PL/I.
Mary Ann
On 11/16/2021 6:57 AM, 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.
>
> Doug
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2021-11-23 22:27 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 75+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2021-11-16 14:57 Douglas McIlroy
2021-11-16 15:22 ` Richard Salz
2021-11-16 15:52 ` Ron Natalie
2021-11-23 2:28 ` Mary Ann Horton
2021-11-23 7:57 ` Henry Bent
2021-11-23 8:10 ` arnold
2021-11-23 8:28 ` Henry Bent
2021-11-23 17:26 ` Adam Thornton
2021-11-23 18:54 ` Ron Natalie
2021-11-23 19:04 ` Al Kossow
2021-11-23 19:39 ` Lawrence Stewart
2021-11-23 19:08 ` Ron Natalie
2021-11-23 21:54 ` Thomas Paulsen [this message]
2021-11-24 15:18 ` Richard Salz
2021-11-24 15:45 ` Larry McVoy
2021-11-24 18:34 ` Rich Morin
2021-11-24 18:40 ` Larry McVoy
2021-11-24 19:39 ` Clem Cole
2021-11-24 20:02 ` Larry McVoy
2021-11-26 19:49 ` [TUHS] AIX/SMIT (was Book Recommendation) Greg A. Woods
2021-11-25 10:26 ` [TUHS] Book Recommendation Tom Ivar Helbekkmo via TUHS
2021-11-25 12:20 ` [TUHS] AIX/SMIT (was Re: Book Recommendation) Stuart Remphrey
2021-11-24 20:13 ` [TUHS] Book Recommendation arnold
2021-11-24 20:18 ` Will Senn
2021-11-25 7:22 ` arnold
2021-11-24 20:15 ` Rob Pike
2021-11-24 20:21 ` joe mcguckin
2021-11-24 20:27 ` Rob Pike
2021-11-24 21:27 ` Richard Salz
2021-11-24 22:19 ` Charles Anthony
2021-11-24 22:29 ` [TUHS] PL/I stuff - was: " Will Senn
2021-11-24 23:00 ` Rob Pike
2021-11-24 23:13 ` Richard Salz
2021-11-25 1:48 ` Nelson H. F. Beebe
2021-11-25 2:03 ` George Michaelson
2021-11-25 14:47 ` Clem Cole
2021-11-26 22:20 ` Alan Glasser
2021-11-26 22:33 ` Alan Glasser
2021-11-27 0:23 ` Dennis Boone
2021-11-27 0:30 ` Larry McVoy
2021-11-27 0:47 ` Charles H. Sauer
2021-11-27 2:43 ` Alan Glasser
2021-11-27 0:56 ` Warner Losh
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2021-12-03 2:50 [TUHS] " Douglas McIlroy
2021-12-06 4:25 ` Adam Thornton
2021-12-06 4:42 ` Dan Halbert
2021-12-06 5:18 ` Charles H. Sauer
2021-11-24 15:50 Norman Wilson
2021-11-16 19:49 Douglas McIlroy
2021-11-16 20:02 ` Dan Cross
2021-11-16 23:16 ` Douglas McIlroy
2021-11-16 17:00 Douglas McIlroy
[not found] ` <CAKH6PiXinxBQGRqoeGMcG9CwTA5BNeU-LY164f-ZLYA4obsyuA@mail.g mail.com>
2021-11-16 18:47 ` John Foust via TUHS
2021-11-16 20:35 ` Bakul Shah
2021-12-02 21:35 ` Duncan Mak
2021-12-02 22:32 ` Bakul Shah
2021-12-02 22:34 ` Rob Pike
2021-11-16 3:16 Douglas McIlroy
2021-11-16 4:08 ` G. Branden Robinson
2021-11-16 14:56 ` Clem Cole
2021-11-16 15:37 ` Richard Salz
2021-11-16 15:50 ` Adam Thornton
2021-11-16 17:02 ` Will Senn
2021-11-16 21:38 ` John Cowan
2021-11-16 21:46 ` Will Senn
2021-11-16 18:27 ` Jon Steinhart
2021-11-16 18:44 ` Heinz Lycklama
2021-11-14 14:37 Clem Cole
2021-11-14 14:55 ` Dennis Boone
2021-11-14 16:35 ` Ralph Corderoy
2021-11-14 18:20 ` Larry McVoy
2021-11-14 18:44 ` Clem Cole
2021-11-14 18:52 ` Ralph Corderoy
2021-11-14 19:27 ` Clem Cole
2021-11-15 9:49 ` Ralph Corderoy
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=d5c635f412e50be3740bf13c2380d799@firemail.de \
--to=thomas.paulsen@firemail.de \
--cc=mah@mhorton.net \
--cc=tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).