You claimed that a lot of things came from FORTRAN that don'r look remotely like FORTRAN syntax, some of which look like Algol 60. A good example is the DO statement, which looks a lot more like an Algol for statement than a FORTRAN DO. Some of what you claimed came from FORTRAN doesn't even exist in PL/I.
-- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [[email protected]] on behalf of Robin Vowels [[email protected]] Sent: Monday, March 28, 2022 8:32 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: PL/I question On 2022-03-28 22:38, Seymour J Metz wrote: > Oddly enough, you listed lots of bogus claims There are no bogus claims. > but forgot one that is > legitimate: the default attributes depending on variable names. Of > course, in FORTRAN it's wired in, but the original PL/I defaults > matched FORTRAN. I don't claim to have itemised every possible feature that came from various languages. They are OTOMH. The main point was that you are wrong in claiming that "FORTRAN had the least influence of the three", which is patently and demonstrably false. Yes, the I to N default for integers, and the rest real, came from FORTRAN, and while we're here, so did PL/I's DEFAULT statement (from FORTRAN's IMPLICIT). > ________________________________________ > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [[email protected]] on > behalf of Robin Vowels [[email protected]] > Sent: Monday, March 28, 2022 6:26 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: PL/I question > > On 2022-03-28 20:43, Seymour J Metz wrote: >> I'm fully aware of the initial name; the fact remains that IBM and >> SHARE looked at three languages, and that FORTRAN had the least >> influence of the three. > > Static storage came from FORTRAN. > Edited input-output (format lists) came from FORTRAN. > EXTERNAL came from FORTRAN. > Function references came from FORTRAN. > CALL statements came from FORTRAN. > Computed GO TO came from FORTRAN. > Remote formats came from FORTRAN > Label parameters came from FORTRAN. > Assignment statements came from FORTRAN. > Implied DO came from FORTRAN. > Data-directed I/O came from FORTRAN. > FORMAT statements came from FORTRAN. > DO statements came from FORTRAN. > >> Most of the language derives from Algol 60 > > Dynamic arrays and scalars came from ALGOL. > Block structure came from ALGOL. > Explicitly allocated arrays did not come from ALGOL. > Free source form came from Algol. > Conditional statements came from Algol. > > No I/O came from Algol. > Generic functions did not come from Algol. > >> and COBOL, > > Data structures came from COBOL. > Picture came from COBOL. > Decimal came from COBOL. > >> and the most obvious feature from FORTRAN has gone by the >> wayside. > > These new features were introduced in PL/I: > BIT strings. > scaled fixed binary. > Varying-length strings. > ALLOCATE-able variables. > The means of detecting and intercepting run-time errors. > integer overflow detection. > subscript bounds checking. > string range checking. > preprocessor. > > >> ________________________________________ >> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [[email protected]] on >> behalf of Robin Vowels [[email protected]] >> Sent: Monday, March 28, 2022 4:53 AM >> To: [email protected] >> Subject: Re: PL/I question >> >> On 2022-03-28 19:10, Seymour J Metz wrote: >>> Exaclly, especially since Algol 60 was one of the three languages >>> folded into PL/I. >> >> FORTRAN, not Algol, was the starting-point for PL/I. >> It was even called FORTRAN VI. >> Features of both Algol and COBOL were incorporated into >> the language. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
