Michael Van Canneyt wrote:
Found <https://github.com/tabatkins/railroad-diagrams>.
Sorry for ask! ^^'
Nice. Added to my bookmarks :-)
I may actually use this to redo the official ones as PNG images.
Without wanting to go too far OT, I wonder whether I could make a couple
of observations.
When I was with Burroughs in the early 80s, these things were referred
to internally as "railroad diagrams". However,
http://www.ianjoyner.name/Files/Waychoff.pdf (page 8) tells the story of
the invention (by Burroughs) of this sort of illustration, and while
much of that document is suspect I think that bit can be believed
because some of it involves ACM publications etc.
Waychoff refers to them as "syntax charts", Perlis described the ALGOL
one as "The ALGOL Roadmap" and it was in "Communications Of
The ACM [...] September, 1961. It was undoubtedly the first centerfold
for any magazine other than “Playboy”".
So hopefully we can drop the nasty "railroad" Americanism, since it
wasn't the original name. And hopefully we can use "syntax" in the name,
since that's what they describe. Hence "syntax chart", "syntax diagram"
or something similar. Please :-)
--
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk
[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]
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