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  • Re: DEC's Conversational Programming Language CPL

    From Lawrence D?Oliveiro@3:633/10 to All on Mon Oct 26 22:07:42 2026
    On Mon, 26 Oct 2026 15:55:34 +0900, David Meyer wrote:

    Lately I've been fascinated by the PL/I programming language.

    Did you know at one point it was going to be called ?FORTRAN VI??

    The original design plans were much more ambitious, but things somehow
    got watered down over time -- like proposals for decent
    argument-passing conventions were abandoned in favour of the same old wishy-washy FORTRAN approach -- because that?s what FORTRAN
    programmers were used to.

    The language doesn?t even have typedefs.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Peter Flass@3:633/10 to All on Mon Oct 26 21:35:30 2026
    On 10/26/26 15:07, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
    On Mon, 26 Oct 2026 15:55:34 +0900, David Meyer wrote:

    Lately I've been fascinated by the PL/I programming language.

    Did you know at one point it was going to be called ?FORTRAN VI??

    The original design plans were much more ambitious, but things somehow
    got watered down over time -- like proposals for decent
    argument-passing conventions were abandoned in favour of the same old wishy-washy FORTRAN approach -- because that?s what FORTRAN
    programmers were used to.

    The language doesn?t even have typedefs.

    Does now. Newish PL/I has a DEFINE statement.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Lawrence D?Oliveiro@3:633/10 to All on Tue Oct 27 05:53:41 2026
    On Mon, 26 Oct 2026 21:35:30 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:

    On 10/26/26 15:07, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

    The language doesn?t even have typedefs.

    Does now. Newish PL/I has a DEFINE statement.

    Weren?t you saying before that this wasn?t necessary?

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Lawrence D?Oliveiro@3:633/10 to All on Tue Oct 27 06:12:03 2026
    On Mon, 26 Oct 2026 19:22:15 -0700, Andy Valencia wrote:

    I think many people were wrestling in this era with what
    "conversational" programming should look like.

    We still are. New ideas keep coming along all the time.

    GUI were supposed to render command lines obsolete (according to
    some), but what they?ve really done is breathe new life into the
    possibilities of command lines.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Peter Flass@3:633/10 to All on Tue Oct 27 09:37:11 2026
    On 10/26/26 22:53, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
    On Mon, 26 Oct 2026 21:35:30 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:

    On 10/26/26 15:07, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

    The language doesn?t even have typedefs.

    Does now. Newish PL/I has a DEFINE statement.

    Weren?t you saying before that this wasn?t necessary?

    Not necessary, but it's there for those who like it.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)