Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcvax!unido!iraun1!iravcl!loeffler
From: loeffler@iravcl.ira.uka.de
Newsgroups: comp.realtime
Subject: Re: Searching for realtime languages
Message-ID: <298@iravcl.ira.uka.de>
Date: 2 Jun 89 11:12:37 GMT
References: <699@tuvie> <2100@internal.Apple.COM> <14355@bfmny0.UUCP> <26614@watmath.waterloo.edu> <14364@bfmny0.UUCP>
Lines: 31
Organisation: Universitaet Karlsruhe, IRA, F.R. Germany

In article <14364@bfmny0.UUCP>, tneff@bfmny0.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
> In article <26614@watmath.waterloo.edu> sccowan@watmsg.waterloo.edu (S. Crispin Cowan) writes:
>>I've had only one, brief, painful experience with PL/M, and I'd never
>>touch it again.  This is mostly because I'm a long-time C hacker, and
>>where ever there was a design choice to be made, the PL/M creators
>>seem to have gone out of there way to choose the OPPOSITE one that C
>>did.  I suppose that it's not that bad a programming language, but it
>>made my brain HURT to try to write & debugg code using it.
> 
> PL/M wasn't really designed in the sense Crispin means.  Its syntax was
> adapted from PL/I Subset which was an afterthought to IBM's PL/I (born
> at the 1967 Vienna Conference as PL/C), i.e., a classic ALGOL-derived
> block structured language.  Subset was supposed to run on advanced state
> of the art computers like the 1130! that lacked the capacity for the huge
> gut busting formatted I/O packages that full PL/I wanted.  It retained the
> block structure and the main data types.  Digital (I believe) did the
> original adaptation for the 8080 in 1978 or 1979 and Intel OEM'd an early
> version and took it over, releasing their own for the 8086 in 1980 or 81.
> Since then it has kept pace with the evolving x86 architecture, expanding
> its data types and adding hardware builtins as needed.  PL/M-486 should be
> out very shortly, I know Intel is using it internally.
> 
> I can see where a dyed in the wool C hacker might balk at PL/M's heavily
> keyword oriented and Algolish feel, but IMHO no true systems person should
> be that much a slave of one language.  I have lived through everything from
> FORTRAN II to BLISS to C to FORTH to PL/M to Apple Integer Basic and many
> more, and I like to tell myself I will be there typin' away when the NEXT
> revolution rolls around.  Just give me a terminal and a deadline... :-)
> -- 
> Tom Neff				UUCP:     ...!uunet!bfmny0!tneff