16 Nov
2021
16 Nov
'21
6:54 p.m.
On 2021-11-16 09:57, Douglas McIlroy wrote:
The following remark stirred old memories. Apologies
for straying off
the path of TUHS.
My first language was actually PL/C (and the computer centre did not
charge for runs in PL/C). I needed to use PL/I for some thesis-related
work and ran into the JLC wall -- no issues with the former, many issues
with the latter. One of the support people, upon learning that I was
using PL/I, said: "PL/I's alright!"
N.
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
16 Nov
16 Nov
7:40 p.m.
On 11/16/2021 12:54 PM, Nemo Nusquam wrote:
On 2021-11-16 09:57, 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.
My first language was actually PL/C (and the computer
centre did not
charge for runs in PL/C). I needed to use PL/I for some thesis-related
work and ran into the JLC wall -- no issues with the former, many issues
with the latter. One of the support people, upon learning that I was
using PL/I, said: "PL/I's alright!"
Inside IBM in the 70s, PL/I was definitely not "insignificant". From my
perspective it was the most reasonable language available on VM/370. I
arrived at Yorktown in 1975 fresh from Austin with a couple of boxes of
punch cards of my "APLOMB" simulation program written in Fortran. I was
surprised when I was encouraged to pursue major enhancement of APLOMB
and dismayed by continuing in Fortran. After a period of increasing
frustration, I wrote a SNOBOL program to convert APLOMB to PL/I and
become the basis for RESQ
(https://notes.technologists.com/notes/2020/08/25/remembering-resq/) As
long as I avoided questionable parts of IBM's PL/I, I was happy with
PL/I. It is hard to imagine that RESQ would have succeeded in any other
language.
--
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8:20 p.m.
On Nov 16, 2021, at 10:55 AM, Nemo Nusquam <cym224(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 2021-11-16 09:57, Douglas McIlroy wrote:
For my very first programming assignment @ USC I spent extra 17 hours due
to an extra space in the JCL statement! It wasn’t a total waste as I rewrote my
program twice, learned to prove to myself that it was correct and once I removed
the space and the program worked, I had a lightbulb moment: Computers were
not inscrutable or mysterious; they were just dumb and literal :-)
I learned IBM assembly language, Fortran and PL/C during those two semesters.
I even wrote an autorouter in Fortran for a project but that my last Fortran project.
Later for a part time job I tried to learn and use pretty much every feature of PL/I.
I found it easier to use than Fortran and fun. Then when I stumbled upon Iverson’s
book on APL and discovered I could use it from an interactive terminal, I managed
to convince the scientist I was working for to let me use it. That was even more fun
but it didn’t last as I made a careless mistake & the program ran too long and used
up most of my boss’es computing budget so it was back to PL/I!
The following remark stirred old memories.
Apologies for straying off
the path of TUHS.
My first language was actually PL/C (and the computer centre did not charge for runs in
PL/C). I needed to use PL/I for some thesis-related work and ran into the JLC wall -- no
issues with the former, many issues with the latter. One of the support people, upon
learning that I was using PL/I, said: "PL/I's alright!" 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.
N.
Doug
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Nemo Nusquam