Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 (Tek) 9/26/83; site tekig1.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!akgua!mcnc!decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!bmcg!cepu!trwrba!trwrb!sdcrdcf!hplabs!tektronix!tekig1!dont
From: dont@tekig1.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: Lexical analyzers and parsers
Message-ID: <1632@tekig1.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 5-May-84 01:31:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: tekig1.1632
Posted: Sat May  5 01:31:12 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 9-May-84 01:18:26 EDT
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
Lines: 23

X
     I think the question to answer is 'what were the driving forces behind the
decisions made at the time?'  This whole field grew out of two different camps,
the math professors and the electrical engineering professors, and a lot of
schools STILL reflect that fact, but that is neither here nor there.  I would
think that the products of the time would reflect this.  I have read comments
that Von Neumann and colleges of the math department were so good at mapping
problems into a fixed point notation space that they considered floating point
support a waste of precious resources.  The sorts of things I have wondered are
   assuming mathmeticians familiarity with functions and arguments, where are
      the early examples of 'functional syntax' languages?
   I assume, considering we are looking at early '50s work, the power of the
      idea of a stack had not been discovered, and that is why we do not see
      early stack oriented languages out of the math depts, true?
   With the fixed format decisions that went into FORTRAN, seemingly making
      an easier job, what drove the design of the language?  We have to 
      recognize that at the time, there was absolutely no theory to support
      what was being done, I seem to remember somewhere that the very first
      FORTRAN, a fairly simple language by undergrad compiler class standards,
      took 18 man years to complete.

Don Taylor
tektronix!tekig1!dont