[TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO

On Aug 10, 2022, at 10:37 AM, arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote: Oh, I'm not arguing with any of this. I'm merely noting that you are unusual in your ability to easily visualize pic results from looking at the code. Arnold Larry McVoy <lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote: > Well, I stand behind my comments. Take a look at what xfig(1) > produces and contrast that with even an average pic(1) source > file. You can't see what xfig is saying but you can easily see > what pic is saying. > > Maybe people just haven't written much pic, but what you can do > with it, and see without rendering it, is pretty amazing. > > I got James Clark to add the 'i'th concept so you could do for > loops to lay out elements and I wrote a pic script where you > could set variables like cpus, networks, disks and it would > draw different configurations of a SPARCcluster. > > Pic is pretty neat, I find it easier to read than any of the > other troff preprocessors. > > On Wed, Aug 10, 2022 at 09:05:20AM -0600, arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote: >> Hi All. >> >> Douglas McIlroy <douglas.mcilroy(a)dartmouth.edu> wrote: >> >>>> I've always believed that pic was so well designed >>>> because it took a day to get the print out (back then), >>> >>> I'm afraid this belief is urban legend. Credit for pic is due 100% to >>> Kernighan, not to the contemporary pace of computing practice. >> >> I occassionally forward TUHS items (that I think are) of interest >> to Brian. I have in the past forwarded one of Larry's "I like pic >> because I can read the code and visualize the picture" emails to >> him. He responded that he didn't work that way. :-) >> >> Here, by permission, is his response to Larry's latest note of >> that kind, which I think is also of more or less general interest: >> >>> Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2022 19:03:00 -0400 (EDT) >>> From: Brian Kernighan <bwk(a)cs.princeton.edu> >>> To: arnold(a)skeeve.com >>> Subject: Re: larry mcvoy on pic, again >>> >>> I don't know that I would read too much into the development of >>> Pic, though my memory is so dim that it would all be made up >>> anyway. >>> >>> One observation: with Yacc and Lex available, languages were a lot >>> easier to implement; I had already done a troff preprocessor so >>> that aspect was well in hand. And I was actually the owner of >>> troff at the same time, so I could mix and match (e.g., the >>> primitives for drawing lines). I think that "seeing the output" >>> wasn't too hard, either because I could use the typesetter, or the >>> Tectronix 4014 (?) for which there was a troff output emulator >>> that I think I wrote. >>> >>> The main issues as I recall were figuring out coordinate systems, >>> since Pic had Y going positive as with conventional plotting, >>> while troff had it going negative (down the page is higher Y >>> values). >>> >>> But it's all kind of fuzzy at this point. > > -- > --- > Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat