It appears that Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> said:
>“The PL/C compiler had the unusual capability of never failing to compile
>> any program, through the use of extensive automatic correction of many
>> syntax errors and by converting any remaining syntax errors to output
>> statements.”
PL/C was a long time ago in the early 1970s. People used it on batch
systems whre you handed in your cards at the window, waited a while,
and later got your printout back. Or at advanced places, you could
run the cards through the reader yourself, then wait until the batch
ran.
PL/C was a 3rd-generation autocorrection programming language. CORC was the 1962 version and CUPL was the 1966 version (same date as DWIM), neither of them based on PL/I. There is an implementation of both at <
http://www.catb.org/~esr/cupl/>.
The Wikipedia DWIM article also points to Magit, the Emacs git client.
In that environment, the benefit from possibly guessing an error
correction right meant fewer trips to the card reader. In my youth I
did a fair amount of programming that way in WATFOR/WATFIV and Algol W
where we really tried to get the programs right since we wanted to
finish up and go home.
When I was using interactive systems where you could fix one bug and
try again, over and over, it seemed like cheating.
R's,
John