20 May
2024
20 May
'24
9:54 a.m.
I remember helping newbie students at USC who were very confused that even though they
made the changes "PL/C USES", their program didn't work!
On May 19, 2024, at 5:58 PM, Rob Pike
<robpike(a)gmail.com> wrote:
The Cornell PL/I compiler, PL/C, ran on the IBM 360 so of course used batch input. It
tried automatically to keep things running after a parsing error by inserting some token -
semicolon, parenthesis, whatever seemed best - and continuing to parse, in order to
maximize the amount of input that could be parsed before giving up. At least, that's
what I took the motivation to be. It rarely succeeded in fixing the actual problem,
despite PL/I being plastered with semicolons, but it did tend to ferret out more errors
per run. I found the tactic helpful.
-rob