20 Mar
2007
20 Mar
'07
7:21 a.m.
20 Mar
20 Mar
7:32 a.m.
On 3/20/07, Ram Meenakshisundaram <RMeenaks at olf.com> wrote:
I caught that earlier. The thing that really snagged my attention was
when they got to "Backus-Naur notation" and I read he was _that_
Backus.
I am just old enough to have been paid to program in FORTRAN, but I'm
really glad I didn't have to do much of it. Besides lifting
programming out of its primordial foundations, John Backus gave us the
platform from which ADVENT sprang. No disrepect to Grace Hopper
intended, but can you imagine trying to write a text adventure in
COBOL?
-ethan
7:54 a.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
On 3/20/07, Ram Meenakshisundaram <RMeenaks at
olf.com> wrote:
I caught that earlier. The thing that really snagged my attention was
when they got to "Backus-Naur notation" and I read he was _that_
Backus.
I am just old enough to have been paid to program in FORTRAN, but I'm
really glad I didn't have to do much of it. Besides lifting
programming out of its primordial foundations, John Backus gave us the
platform from which ADVENT sprang. No disrepect to Grace Hopper
intended, but can you imagine trying to write a text adventure in
COBOL?
I've done quite a bit of scientific programming in support of my father
the scientist. There's some stuff for which I just prefer FORTRAN.
I've read much of his stuff, being a fan of his. He'll be missed.
Peace... Sridhar
8:22 a.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
I caught that earlier. The thing that really snagged
my attention was
when they got to "Backus-Naur notation" and I read he was _that_
Backus.
I am just old enough to have been paid to program in FORTRAN, but I'm
really glad I didn't have to do much of it. Besides lifting
programming out of its primordial foundations, John Backus gave us the
platform from which ADVENT sprang. No disrepect to Grace Hopper
intended, but can you imagine trying to write a text adventure in
COBOL?
I limit my text adventure games to RPG-II.
8:43 a.m.
On 20/03/07, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
John Backus gave us the
platform from which ADVENT sprang. No disrepect to Grace Hopper
intended, but can you imagine trying to write a text adventure in
COBOL?
I've done it .. full multi-user and all.
OK, it was actually in "Speedbase", a COBOL-with-bells, whistles,
text-based-gui and databases, and I never actually finished it, but I
did it...
I also 98% ported "Countdown to Doom" (an Acornsoft adventure for the
BBC Micro) to BOS/COBOL, just to see if it could be done. (It
could..)
12:18 p.m.
On Tue, 20 Mar 2007, Jules Richardson wrote:
Rob wrote:
The "Countdown to Doom" trilogy was ported to Inform some years ago.
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
I also 98% ported "Countdown to Doom"
(an Acornsoft adventure for the
BBC Micro) to BOS/COBOL, just to see if it could be done. (It
could..)
Hmm, I believe I have the source to that somewhere (assuming it was a Jon
Thackray creation) 
9:33 a.m.
On 3/20/07, Ram Meenakshisundaram <RMeenaks at
olf.com> wrote:
>
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/19/obituaries/20cnd-backus.html?ex=133204320…
Random thoughts...
Considering FORTRAN for what it was when it came out, it was pretty
remarkable. I recall an old ACM (was it SIGPLAN?) recollection of
one of the first users of 704(?) FORTRAN. What impressed me was that
this compiler-on-cards pointed out a syntax error with message of the
form:
A COMPUTED GOTO REQUIRES A COMMA BETWEEN THE STATEMENT LIST AND
VARIABLE. E.G. GOTO (100,200,300),J
At one point in time, given machines with different character sets
and word- and character sizes, FORTRAN was about the only way to
write a portable program. If the program involved, for instance,
text manipulation, one included as the first card of the data file
one punched with all of the characters of the alphabet to be used and
read it into an integer array using 80A1 format.
Did any computer built after 1960 NOT have a FORTRAN implementation?
IIRC, that was a big selling point for the PDP-8.
There was a period in time where just about any serious programmer
had a copy of McCracken on their bookshelves.
Didn't Backus also participate in the Algol-60 effort?
There were big sections of the CDC FTN compiler (prior to the
introduction of SYMPL) that were written in FORTRAN. One of the
biggest nightmares was the processor for allocating storage in COMMON
and EQUIVALENCE statements--a big mass of assigned GOTOs. Even after
I understood how it worked, I was afraid to touch it.
Sense switch 2 up and go, John!
Cheers,
Chuck
3:02 p.m.
On Tue, 20 Mar 2007, Ethan Dicks wrote:
I am just old enough to have been paid to program in
FORTRAN, but I'm
really glad I didn't have to do much of it. Besides lifting
programming out of its primordial foundations, John Backus gave us the
platform from which ADVENT sprang. No disrepect to Grace Hopper
intended, but can you imagine trying to write a text adventure in
COBOL?
A REAL programmer can write a FORTRAN program in any language
21 Mar
21 Mar
12:11 p.m.
woodelf wrote:
Fred Cisin wrote:
Or multidimensional Funge-98. 8-)
INTERCAL is still procedural and one-dimensional.
Peace... Sridhar
On Tue, 20 Mar 2007, Ethan Dicks wrote:
A REAL programmer can write a FORTRAN program in any language
Ok, lets see you do it in INTERCAL. :) 
3:07 p.m.
Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
Or multidimensional Funge-98. 8-)
I refuse to talk about software with the numbers 95, 98 , 2000
or hardware with the numbers 486, 586 or 9000.
My brain gets lost even with the name of some of those
crazy laguages.
INTERCAL is still procedural and one-dimensional.
The joke here was INTERCAL has no goto statements
just COME FROM ones.
Peace... Sridhar
2:39 p.m.
woodelf wrote:
Funge-98 isn't software. It's a specification standard for a language.
Or
multidimensional Funge-98. 8-)
I refuse to talk about software with the numbers 95, 98 , 2000
or hardware with the numbers 486, 586 or 9000. My brain gets lost even with the name of some of
those
crazy laguages.
I know INTERCAL like the back of my hand. 8-) I was just making an
observation that INTERCAL is not different enough from FORTRAN to make
it particularly difficult to write FORTRAN-style code in INTERCAL.
Peace... Sridhar
INTERCAL is still procedural and one-dimensional.
The joke here was INTERCAL has no goto statements
just COME FROM ones. 
5:34 p.m.
Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
I am wondering why you detest the HP900/200 machines. I've always founf
them to be well-made 68K boxes from the early 80's that have decent
'laboratory' I/O (GPIO, BCD, HPIB, ADC, etc interfaces, either built-in
or aas DIO cards)
-tony
Or multidimensional Funge-98. 8-)
I refuse to talk about software with the numbers 95, 98 , 2000
or hardware with the numbers 486, 586 or 9000.
11:58 a.m.
Fred Cisin wrote:
On Tue, 20 Mar 2007, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Nope, real programmers write in binary.
http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/tech/computers/TheHackersDicti…
Peace... Sridhar
I am just old enough to have been paid to program
in FORTRAN, but I'm
really glad I didn't have to do much of it. Besides lifting
programming out of its primordial foundations, John Backus gave us the
platform from which ADVENT sprang. No disrepect to Grace Hopper
intended, but can you imagine trying to write a text adventure in
COBOL?
A REAL programmer can write a FORTRAN program in any language
2:31 p.m.
Jules Richardson wrote:
Ethan Dicks wrote:
Possibly.
If I didn't have to look up the codes, does it mean I'm an incurable geek?
Peace... Sridhar
On 3/21/07, Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at
gmail.com> wrote:
Possibly the most geeky post ever to reach classiccmp? :-) Nope, real programmers write in binary.
01010010 01101001 01100111 01101000 01110100 00100000 01001111
01101110 00100001
3:03 p.m.
Jules Richardson wrote:
Ethan Dicks wrote:
> 01010010 01101001 01100111 01101000 01110100 00100000 01001111
> 01101110 00100001
EBCD or ASCII? I wonder...
Possibly the most geeky post ever to reach classiccmp?
:-)
I thought 'telneting' to classic cmp server your email would be the
most geeky post.
2:30 p.m.
woodelf wrote:
Jules Richardson wrote:
Actually I wasn't sure if I meant Ethan's post or mine. I actually decoded the
binary. It was ASCII. :-)
Ethan Dicks wrote:
> 01010010 01101001 01100111 01101000 01110100 00100000 01001111
> 01101110 00100001
EBCD or ASCII? I wonder...
Possibly the most geeky post ever to reach
classiccmp? :-)
I thought 'telneting' to classic cmp server your email would be the
most geeky post.
2:51 p.m.
Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
> A REAL programmer can write a FORTRAN program in
any language
Nope, real programmers write in binary.
http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/tech/computers/TheHackersDicti…
I like the ORIGINAL version better.
Peace... Sridhar
.
2:37 p.m.
woodelf wrote:
Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
The author has written that he likes the "free verse" version better. 8-)
Peace... Sridhar
> A REAL programmer can write a FORTRAN program
in any language
Nope, real programmers write in binary.
http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/tech/computers/TheHackersDicti…
I like the ORIGINAL version better.
20 Mar
20 Mar
5:51 p.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
I am just old enough to have been paid to program in
FORTRAN, but I'm
really glad I didn't have to do much of it. Besides lifting
programming out of its primordial foundations, John Backus gave us the
platform from which ADVENT sprang. No disrepect to Grace Hopper
intended, but can you imagine trying to write a text adventure in
COBOL?
It is a 'text adventure' to write anything in COBOL.
It does seem that all the early programing languages back then
were ( and still is ) very hard to write compilers for.
-ethan
21 Mar
21 Mar
2:52 p.m.
On 3/21/07 1:51 AM, woodelf wrote:
It is a 'text adventure' to write anything in
COBOL.
Since just over a year, I've gone back to writing COBOL (and a little bit of
C here and there, to keep me sane, for the "complicated" stuff) for a
living. I'm loving every minute of it. Yeah, it's wordy, but it has a
certain "je ne sais quoi" that keeps it fun, for me at least. I did some web
development in Java and PHP, before, and when doing that I often found
myself thinking, "this would be so much easier to do in COBOL." Of course,
nowadays I find myself thinking, "this could be done so much more elegantly
in C/Java/whatever," but still.
You can't beat a big fat IBM zSeries when it comes to shifting gargantuan
amounts of data around. It remains a joy to see company after company try to
ditch the dinosaurs and move it all to Windows servers, only to fail
miserably and come crawling back to the mainframe.
Anyone know of a COBOL compiler for Mac OS X? :-P
,xtG
.tsooJ
--
Real programmers always mix up Halloween
and Christmas, because Oct 31 == Dec 25
--
Joost van de Griek
<http://www.jvdg.net/>
22 Mar
22 Mar
3:28 a.m.
On 21/03/07, Joost van de Griek <jvdg at sparcpark.net> wrote:
Anyone know of a COBOL compiler for Mac OS X? :-P
http://www.opencobol.org/ claims to run on OS X. Of course that's
more of a COBOL to C translator (and then chains gcc) rather than a
true COBOL compiler...
Almost on-topic, I've got a copy of "Fujitsu COBOL" June 1997 edition
here.. I've had it since it was new, and still not got around to
trying it out... I think I can beat the minumum spec, now, though.
(486, 5Mb RAM Win 3.1/95/NT..)
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26 comments
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ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
cclist＠sydex.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu -
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julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
jvdg＠sparcpark.net -
kth＠srv.net -
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RMeenaks＠olf.com -
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