On 4/2/2024 11:40 AM, Clem Cole wrote:
On Tue, Apr 2, 2024 at 11:23 AM Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org
<mailto:dave@horsfall.org>> wrote:
Has there ever been a full implementation of PL/I?
Well all of the IBM, GE/Honeywell and DEC compilers were certified. Bob
Freiburghouse (who was part of the Multics compiler if I understand this
right), created a firm in Mass that built a number of commercial
compilers for a number of folks, with PL/1 being their prime. In fact
when DEC bought the PL/1 front-end from them (which was in PL/1 of
course), Culter and team wrote the VAX back-end, they had to
cross-compile in Cambridge (I think at MIT) and bring the assembler
source back to ZKO in Nashua to assemble and test.
It seems akin tosolving the halting problem...
No more than Algol-68 and many modern languages.
Yes, I've used PL/I in my CompSci days, and was told that IBM had
trademarkedeverything from /I to /C :-)
I think that is more like an urban legend and IBM's notorious marketing
behavior since Gary Kidall (who was originally a compiler guy) created
PL/M for the 8080 and sold it to Intel.
-- Dave, who loved PL/360
Yeah - it might have been Nicklaus Wirth's best language. I still have
the Standford manuals, but I can not say I have seen a working compiler
since the late 1970s :-)
I was ready to jump in, but since I didn't have a definitive answer, I
waited for someone (Clem) who would really know.
The vast majority of my undergraduate and graduate school work was in
CDC Fortran. When I joined IBM Yorktown in 1975, I brought that work
with me in thousands of punched cards. Initially, I continued my
simulation work in Fortran. As that work became more important, Fortran
was unacceptable. I wrote a Fortran to PL/I crude translator in SNOBOL,
had the PL/I version running in a couple of weeks, and didn't look back.
Being judicious in using just the good parts, PL/I seemed just fine.
Essentially all of my work at Yorktown was in PL/I.
The 801 people created PL.8, which was primarily a subset of the good
parts of PL/I, but with some changes that I'd have to research to remember.
Charlie
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