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From: lth@uoregon.uoregon.edu (Lars Thomas Hansen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Structured loops (WAS:Re: Turing programming language.)
Summary: do ... while .. od construct
Keywords: programming language
Message-ID: <3634@uoregon.uoregon.edu>
Date: 27 Jan 89 02:12:36 GMT
References: <11@euteal.UUCP> <89Jan20.111000est.4328@turing.toronto.edu> <12@euteal.UUCP> <7053@june.cs.washington.edu>
Reply-To: lth@drizzle.UUCP (Lars Thomas Hansen)
Followup-To: comp.lang.misc
Organization: University of Oregon, Computer Science, Eugene OR
Lines: 26

In article <7053@june.cs.washington.edu> pardo@cs.washington.edu (David Keppel) writes:
>>>[Ongoing discussion of Turing loop structure]
>
>There is a more general construct that I've not seen in any existing
>programming languages, although (a) doubtless it exists and (b) the
>idea is easily a decade old (ok, probably 30, but I *know* at least
>10) Substitute your favorite C/Pascal/Lisp/Smalltalk syntax.  In
>meta-Algol:
>
>	do ... while boolean ... od;
>
>
[useful examples deleted ]

The do ... while <condition>  ... enddo construct exists in a not-too-well-
known language in this part of the world, namely in the application language
of "NorSoft", a Norwegian application generator/database system, which has
a remarkably powerful language (with which I am hopelessly in love and wish I
could use for other things as well :-)

As an aside, I think that Pascal's While-Do and C's while/do-while/for(;;)
constructs are infinitely more readable than the general (admittedly power-
ful) loop construct in Turing.

hi ho
--lth