[cctalk] Re: What constitutes a dead computer language

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Jun 22, 2026, at 2:03 PM, Van Snyder via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> 
> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 2026-06-22 at 09:35 -0400, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
>> Did anyone use FORTRAN?  I do remember IBM wrote the OS/360 FORTRAN
>> (H) compiler in FORTRAN.
> 
> About forty years ago, FORTRAN was called "the universal assembly
> language." People who invented new languages generated Fortran code
> because it's easier than generating machine code, and your new language
> would instantly run on every machine that had a Fortran compiler. 

Wow.  I've never heard of that, or seen it done.  And I would certainly never 
have considered doing so myself. 

Then again, one of my DEC colleagues wrote a parser in COBOL, but that was more 
a "watch this -- hold my beer" type of thing.

        paul