21 Jun
2006
21 Jun
'06
8:33 p.m.
Chuck wrote...
>Back in the 60's and 70's there was a brief
interest in "natural"
>programming languages that used English as a basis. The goal was to
>provide something that would be easy for an "average" person to use.
Well, it wasn't a programming language, but it was a command prompt data
retrieval database language. Pick (aka Reality, Sequel, Zebra, Revelation,
Mentor, Ultimate, Prime Information yada yada yada....) did. For example, at
the command prompt, the following are valid commands and yield just what
you'd think.
LIST CUSTOMER-INVOICES WITH ORDER.AMOUNT > "50.00"
SELECT CUSTOMERS WITH ZIP = "63102" AND WITH AR.BALANCE # "0.00"
LIST CUSTOMERS NAME ADDRESS CONTACT
And of course you could store those commands in a file and even use in-line
prompting for variables, so it was kind of a programming language too.
Jay West