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Date:	Sun, 15 Feb 2004 18:13:17 PST8
From:	Peter Skye <pskye@peterskye.com >
Reply-To:	scoug-programming@scoug.com
To:	scoug-programming@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Programming: PL/I most important statement (was: call(TZ) ? - PL/I)

Content Type: text/plain

Lynn H. Maxson wrote:
>
> > ... APL compiler ...
>
> Fortran was possibly the worst choice under the
> circumstances . . . APL supports aggregate
> operands as does PL/I. Fortran does not.

So what? Assembler has been used for a lot of things, and _it_ doesn't
have "support" for such fancy operands. Parse it and stack it (reverse
Polish), unstack it and execute it. As I recall the stacking algorithm
is very simple, though I don't have it memorized.

> Bob gave an excellent presentation of the
> 'parse' verb in REXX. You would play hell
> trying to replicate that in Fortran.

But once you've done it, just once, everybody else can then make use of
your algorithm.

> I learned to program in actual from reading Dan
> McCracken's "Digital Computer Programming".
> Later on I for PL/I I found the book by Gerald
> Weinberg. These two communicators established
> a standard for writing that few have reached since.

I believe I've read McCracken's book, though it was a long time ago.
Never seen the one by Weinberg.

This whole BEGIN block thread started when I asked what you thought was
the most valuable PL/I statement. Obviously it's not BEGIN! I was
thinking when I wrote that original message that we should create a
parser for your SL/I language (Steven Levine had just explained YAC and
LEXX [sp?] to me in a private message) so we could "get the ball
rolling" instead of arguing the philosophy of
who-what-when-where-why-how. I'm curious to find out how my own
approach to parsers matches up with how YAC (do I have that right?)
works.

- Peter

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