16 Nov
2021
16 Nov
'21
9:52 p.m.
PL/I was my introduction to structured programming (though it took a
somewhat loose approach to that). I always
Over my early years I spent time on a couple of implementations and
always had been amused by its somewhat COBOLish IO scheme
and spent a little time dabbling in variants such as the IBM PL/S,
UNIVAC PLUS, and the UofM interpretted PLUM.
Then I got introduced to C and it was all downhill from there :)
------ Original Message ------
From: "Douglas McIlroy" <douglas.mcilroy(a)dartmouth.edu>
To: "TUHS main list" <tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org>
Sent: 11/16/2021 9:57:55 AM
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Book Recommendation
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