17 Mar
2018
17 Mar
'18
2:57 a.m.
On 16/03/2018, Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
We lost computer pioneer John Backus on this day in
2007; amongst other
things he gave us FORTRAN (yuck!) and BNF, which is ironic, really,
because FORTRAN has no syntax to speak of.
Early on, I landed a job requiring VAX FORTRAN but I was not actually
conversant in it -- I told a white lie. I saw "FORTRAN Tools for
VAX/VMS" at a local technical store and read it cover to cover. (The
title was an intentional play on Kernighan & Plauger and built similar
tools using FORTRAN -- side topic but whatever happened to Plauger?)
Said implementation pleasantly surprised me: nothing at all like the
primitive early versions.
N.
--
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU) "Those who don't understand security will
suffer."