13 Jun
2023
13 Jun
'23
4:50 a.m.
Hi Clem,
At 2023-06-12T18:39:32-0400, Clem Cole wrote:
Apologies to TUHS - other than please don't think
Fortran did not
impact UNIX and its peers. We owe that community our jobs, and for
creating the market in that we all would build systems and eventually
improve.
Absolutely. Fortran (77) was the first language this weedhopper learned
after BASIC (which, while much despised by the sorts of people who
update jargon files, _also_ had early support in CSRC Unix). While I
intensely disliked the fixed-source format (a defect Fortran 90
remedied), I acquired it more easily than C, to the relief of the guys
on my class project team who already knew C and _hated_ Fortran.
My wisecrack was not meant as a derogation of Fortran in any way, but
rather as a sly (not really) allusion to a word also appearing in your
expansion of the COFF list's name as seen above...
Best regards to you and to Fortran, and a nod to the copy of
Metcalf/Reid/Cohen on my bookshelf,
Branden