On Wed, 25 Sep 2024 11:03:13 +0800, Woozy Song wrote:

> When I went to uni in the 70s, the computer science lecturer had a
> hard-on for Pascal, the latest and greatest. Always slipped in snide
> remarks about BASIC or COBOL in most classes.

Better Pascal than Modula/Modula-2. I swear as soon as anybody figured
out how to do anything useful with one of his languages Wirth designed a
new, more obscure version.

https://www.modula2.org/tutor/chapter8.php

Chapter 8 - Input/Output
In preparation

That sums it up. I've heard Wirth's languages described as programs that
are designed to tell secrets to themselves.

On Wed, 25 Sep 2024 00:52:11 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> FORTRAN was even worse, at least in the bad old days. Porting Adventure
> and Dungeon from the PDP-11 to Univac's 360 workalikes was lots of fun.
> Not only were there a lot of DECisms (RAD50 constants, anyone?)
> but I had to convert ASCII to EBCDIC (including decrypting the message
> file, translating it, and re-encrypting it). But I _really_ wanted to
> play Dungeon, and I didn't have access to a PDP-11...

I won't name names but when I did an interface to a large US Midwestern
state's criminal justice network the queries and returned data had to be
translated to/from EBCDIC. Their last card reader must have broken a
couple of years ago when they went to a new ASCII API.

On 9/24/24 3:17 AM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Tue, 24 Sep 2024 02:45:16 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>
>> Still have my K&R 'C' book ...
>
> Would hope you have caught up with C99, at least.

Ummm ... STILL mostly stick to the Original Product.
Can't go wrong.

>> Oh, "network programming" is HARD ...
>
> Not that hard. Some of us do it every day.

Yea, but not so MANY of you in the world ...

It's a relatively rare/important skill.

A pre-threaded bi-di TCP daemon does not require
THAT much code these days, but the routines that
code invokes are *complicated*. Do NOT wanna go
to THAT level.

> <https://gitlab.com/ldo/ssl_try_python/>
>
>> Wrote a FORTRAN app just a couple of years ago ...
>
> Did you use a suitably recent version of Fortran, namely Fortran 90 at
> least? It’s quite a decent language these days.

F77

Adequate for the purpose.

It was a 'decent' language even then. More 'friendly'
now, but be careful how much 'solid'/'simple' you trade
for "friendly".

NOT sure if there are still NATIVE F77 compilers for
Linux. Things like gFortran - just 'C' translators -
may as well just do it in 'C' to begin with.

I *think* there are still native F77 compilers for
Linux - but quick searches don't name them anymore.
Maybe 'flang-16' ... but it's reputed to be missing
some stuff. Good old 8-bit compilers ... Intel 'fixed'
THAT. DO have an old core2-quad box that still runs
8-bit however.

On 9/24/24 6:16 AM, Pancho wrote:
> On 9/24/24 08:17, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>> On Tue, 24 Sep 2024 02:45:16 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>
>>> Still have my K&R 'C' book ...
>>
>> Would hope you have caught up with C99, at least.
>>
>>> Oh, "network programming" is HARD ...
>>
>> Not that hard. Some of us do it every day.
>>
>> <https://gitlab.com/ldo/ssl_try_python/>
>>
>>> Wrote a FORTRAN app just a couple of years ago ...
>>
>> Did you use a suitably recent version of Fortran, namely Fortran 90 at
>> least? It’s quite a decent language these days.
>
> We can all do network programming. The art is making it secure and
> resilient.
>
> Not the kind of thing you want a sloppy application developer like me
> going anywhere near, which is why I choose to avoid it whenever
> possible, and to use services that hide the complexity, as far as possible.

Very accurate - THESE days the 'security' stuff kinda
outranks everything else. Vlad's boyz will just POUND
yer code looking for ANY tiny crack. If they can't get
in then they'll make it crash just for spite.

YOUR code, the LIBS, the DRIVERS - SO many places for
problems. Kinda scary. Frankly the whole foundation of
the Net and 'secure' anything is highly in doubt now.
"AI" can try EVERY attack option, smartly, quickly.

Maybe Sears needs to publish a new catalog ? Paper
form and a money order via snail mail .........

Like REALLY .......

On 9/24/24 4:01 AM, D wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, 24 Sep 2024, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>
>> On 9/21/24 8:03 AM, Farley Flud wrote:
>>> Rust is laughable garbage.
>>>
>>> Some jerk at Mozilla cobbles some shit together and it ends
>>> up impressing his co-workers, all network "programmers" who
>>> are the lowest of the low.
>>
>>  Look ... 'Rust' is really no better, or worse, than
>>  a LOT of existing computer languages. If you LIKE
>>  its vibe, USE it. If not, DON'T
>>
>>  Python wasn't always popular. Took time to build
>>  a real following.
>>
>>  Me, I'd rather use 'C' ... which was a brand new
>>  language when I got into computers - it was the
>>  Cool New Thing on PDP-11s. However the syntax IS,
>>  and especially can be MADE, a bit obscure. More
>>  'obvious', 'self-documenting' langs DO have an
>>  advantage.
>>
>>  Still have my K&R 'C' book - and stick pretty
>>  much TOO it. I'd also rec "Algorithms in 'C'"
>>  by Sedgewick. STILL consult that.
>>
>>  But my #1 fave is still Pascal. Poetry  :-)
>>  Thank you professor Wirth !
>>
>>  Oh, "network programming" is HARD ... those people
>>  are NOT the "lowest of the low" by any means. The
>>  whole Modern World depends on them.
>>
>>  But then you're just trying to start flames,
>>  aren't you ? Try being more productive.
>>
>>  Hey, want "Real Computing" ? Try FORTRAN
>>  or COBOL. THOSE were the foundation and
>>  persist to this day. Wrote a FORTRAN app
>>  just a couple of years ago - mostly to vex
>>  the New Guys. Also a short COBOL app, that
>>  oughtta REALLY give 'em the shits !  :-)
>>
>
> Messages like this give me the vibe of an old distinguished professor
> writing. These types of messages tend to completely melt the troll in
> me. ;)

Well, I *was* the Old Guy ... and noted that those
moving in to be my replacements knew almost SHIT
about programming/systems. THEIR 'fix' is to go
Office-365 Online stuff. That way they don't need
to KNOW dick except how to pay the bill - and
nothing is THEIR fault.

I came in when you could hardly buy ANY software,
or appropriate hardware for that matter. Spent a
lot of time with a soldering iron and 8051/PIC/logic
chips to get the Desired Results. Such fun using
DDL to expand interrupt-pin functionality. DigiKey
and Tandy got a LOT of money from me :-)

THEN you had to be a jack-of-all-trades, NOW you
just Charge It to M$ and hope for the best. That's
what "IT" means now. NOT for the best. Vlad's boyz
WILL destroy it and the world will STOP.

On Wed, 25 Sep 2024 01:44:52 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> On 9/24/24 3:17 AM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> Would hope you have caught up with C99, at least.
>
> Ummm ... STILL mostly stick to the Original Product. Can't go wrong.

Shame.

>> Did you use a suitably recent version of Fortran, namely Fortran 90 at
>> least? It’s quite a decent language these days.
>
> F77

Shame.

On Wed, 25 Sep 2024 02:28:15 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> Well, I *was* the Old Guy ... and noted that those moving in to be my
> replacements knew almost SHIT about programming/systems.

Well, now you seem to be the one whose knowledge is, shall we say, judging
from your other comments on this thread, tending towards obsolescence?

On Wed, 25 Sep 2024 01:44:52 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> On 9/24/24 3:17 AM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>> On Tue, 24 Sep 2024 02:45:16 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>
>>> Still have my K&R 'C' book ...
>>
>> Would hope you have caught up with C99, at least.
>
> Ummm ... STILL mostly stick to the Original Product.
> Can't go wrong.

Hopefully you've moved past K&R style function definitions. afak they will
still compile though. C99 added some things I use like // comments and
declaring variable close to where they're used rather than a laundry list
at the top of the function. With the exception of the implied int which
always was sloppy form, C99 didn't rock the boat like Python 3.

On 25 Sep 2024 04:38:54 GMT, rbowman wrote:

> Better Pascal than Modula/Modula-2.

It’s in the name: “modular”. Pascal had features like I/O and memory
management as predefined functions/procedures; Modula-2 made them into
library routines that could be implemented in Modula-2 itself.

Why? So that Modula-2 could be used to write an actual operating system
(Medos, for the Lilith workstation), which you couldn’t do in Pascal
alone.

On 9/24/24 8:26 AM, Lars Poulsen wrote:
> On 23/09/2024 23:45, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>    Hey, want "Real Computing" ? Try FORTRAN
>>    or COBOL. THOSE were the foundation and
>>    persist to this day. Wrote a FORTRAN app
>>    just a couple of years ago - mostly to vex
>>    the New Guys. Also a short COBOL app, that
>>    oughtta REALLY give 'em the shits !  :-)
>
> Back in 1985, I changed jobs from a University computer center, where we
> did our technical documentation using Univac's @DOC processor, to a
> small industrial computer system integration firm, where we built
> real-time systems on RSX-11M. I missed the @DOC so much that I wrote a
> re-implementation in FORTRAN IV. Used it for years afterwards, until I
> landed at a larger house doing communications work on Unix, and switched
> to /troff/.

Hey, FORTRAN *will* Get It Done as neatly as most
anything else. If you need many decades worth of
exotic math libs, you'll find them in FORTRAN too.
It is NOT an obsolete language/approach.

For the younger people, note that Python carries
over a lot of FORTRAN ideas, including easy
string-slicing.

If you can do BASIC then you can do FORTRAN, but
does anybody use BASIC anymore ? Intel/IBM did
sell BASCOM ... a BASIC compiler ... and it DID
speed up yer code like by 10X :-)

COBOL ... well ... would rather NOT use it.
The whole "self documenting" idea turned out
to be crap - COBOL is *hard* to understand
sometimes. That's why COBOL programmers can
get really high-pay jobs these days, because
so much of that irreplacable biz software
from the 60s was writ in COBOL. Nobody can
AFFORD to re-write it. It worked, it works,
it was writ by REALLY GOOD narrow-tie Dilberts,
so you just have to MAINTAIN it like forever.

On Wed, 25 Sep 2024 02:42:16 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> Hey, FORTRAN *will* Get It Done as neatly as most anything else. If
> you need many decades worth of exotic math libs, you'll find them in
> FORTRAN too.

Not any more. The stuff nowadays is very much usable with other languages,
particularly Python.

On Tue, 24 Sep 2024 23:45:51 +0000, rbowman wrote:

> On Tue, 24 Sep 2024 21:14:04 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> PL/I was IBM’s attempt at a Grand Unification of both “business” and
>> “scientific” programming in one language. If you thought C++
>> programming was full of surprises when your program did unexpected
>> things, PL/I invented the whole genre of “surprise-ridden programming
>> language”
>
> IBM was always so modest. Programming Language One. A Programming
> Language.

A colleague of mine wrote a powerful macro processor (which I still use
and maintain). He called it Macro Language One - ML/I. He loved taking the
piss out of IBM.

--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

On 25 Sep 2024 06:52:08 GMT, Bob Eager wrote:

> On Tue, 24 Sep 2024 23:45:51 +0000, rbowman wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 24 Sep 2024 21:14:04 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>>> PL/I was IBM’s attempt at a Grand Unification of both “business” and
>>> “scientific” programming in one language. If you thought C++
>>> programming was full of surprises when your program did unexpected
>>> things, PL/I invented the whole genre of “surprise-ridden programming
>>> language”
>>
>> IBM was always so modest. Programming Language One. A Programming
>> Language.
>
> A colleague of mine wrote a powerful macro processor (which I still use
> and maintain). He called it Macro Language One - ML/I. He loved taking
> the piss out of IBM.

Gary Kildall may have been doing that with PL/M, Programming Language for
Microprocessors. It did have some PL/I DNA.

On Wed, 25 Sep 2024 06:47:14 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> On Wed, 25 Sep 2024 02:42:16 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>
>> Hey, FORTRAN *will* Get It Done as neatly as most anything else. If you
>> need many decades worth of exotic math libs, you'll find them in
>> FORTRAN too.
>
> Not any more. The stuff nowadays is very much usable with other
> languages,
> particularly Python.

https://pythonspeed.com/articles/intro-rust-python-extensions/

if you want to jump on the rust wagon.

On 9/24/2024 4:36 PM, Peter Flass wrote:
> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> On 24/09/2024 14:11, Sn!pe wrote:
>>
>>> No mention of ALGOL, the ALGorithmic Language? It was contemporaneous
>>> with both FORmula TRANslator and COmmon Business-Oriented Language.
>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALGOL>
>>>
>> If you look at Algol, it really spawned the likes of B, C, and Pascal
>> and so on . Its use of local variables being a key feature. They
>> completely replaced it.
>>
> PL/I got it’s block structures from ALGOL.
>
>> FORTRAN became the start of BASIC.
>>
>> COBOL was really a standalone thing. You might say SQL owes it some homage.
>>
> PL/I got PICTURE from COBOL. I’m really surprised no other language has
> picked this up, it’s so handy.
>

Unisys ALGOL has PICTURE declarations. The REPLACE statement features
"WITH <PICTURE identifier>" as one of its many options.

Louis

On Wed, 25 Sep 2024 07:06:36 +0000, rbowman wrote:

> On 25 Sep 2024 06:52:08 GMT, Bob Eager wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 24 Sep 2024 23:45:51 +0000, rbowman wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 24 Sep 2024 21:14:04 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>>
>>>> PL/I was IBM’s attempt at a Grand Unification of both “business” and
>>>> “scientific” programming in one language. If you thought C++
>>>> programming was full of surprises when your program did unexpected
>>>> things, PL/I invented the whole genre of “surprise-ridden programming
>>>> language”
>>>
>>> IBM was always so modest. Programming Language One. A Programming
>>> Language.
>>
>> A colleague of mine wrote a powerful macro processor (which I still use
>> and maintain). He called it Macro Language One - ML/I. He loved taking
>> the piss out of IBM.
>
> Gary Kildall may have been doing that with PL/M, Programming Language
> for Microprocessors. It did have some PL/I DNA.

There are also PL-516, PL-11, ...

--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

On 24/09/2024 23:36, Peter Flass wrote:
> R Daneel Olivaw <Danny@hyperspace.vogon.gov> wrote:
>> rbowman wrote:
>>> On Tue, 24 Sep 2024 14:11:19 +0100, Sn!pe wrote:
>>>
>>>> No mention of ALGOL, the ALGorithmic Language? It was contemporaneous
>>>> with both FORmula TRANslator and COmmon Business-Oriented Language.
>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALGOL>
>>>
>>> ALGOL's impact on succeeding languages was much greater than its actual
>>> use.
>>>
>>
>> ALGOL60 was the language where a test of equality between two floating
>> point numbers was actually a test of "close enough for ALGOL". If I
>> want to test for "approximately equal" then I want a different operator.
>> How well did it handle character strings? Any language which could not
>> handle them was a language I wanted no part of.
>>
>
> C is just pathetic at character strings.
>
Not really.
They are clearly defined entities and you could construct any routines
to manipualate them you liked

--
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere,
diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”
― Groucho Marx

Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> On Tue, 24 Sep 2024 18:24:02 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>
>> At the risk of planting flame bait <nudge, nudge>, here in North America
>> Algol was generally considered the domain of computer science weenies,
>> while FORTRAN and COBOL were used for applications in the Real World
>> [tm] (science/engineering and business, respectively).
>
> It didn’t help that Algol-60 had nothing resembling standardized I/O
> facilities, whereas these were an integral feature of both Fortran and
> COBOL.
>
> This was remedied later in Algol-68, at the cost of adding a lot of
> complexity.
>
> This was in the days before POSIX, of course, when every computer system
> seemed to do I/O entirely differently. Most of those, um, idiosyncrasies,
> have thankfully evaporated.
>
>> So does PL/I (or is it PL/1 this week?), which allowed data structures
>> to be declared COBOL-style.
>
> PL/I was IBM’s attempt at a Grand Unification of both “business” and
> “scientific” programming in one language. If you thought C++ programming
> was full of surprises when your program did unexpected things, PL/I
> invented the whole genre of “surprise-ridden programming language”.

My C++ programs NEVER exhibit surprise! (Well, almost never :-D)

I did a little bit of Algol the first couple years of college, using an
acoustic modem to access some mainframe in Kansas City.

Then they got a PDP machine, and I learned how to use RUNOFF. Typing in ALL
CAPS.

Did a fair amount of FORTRAN, too, include programming a lab system to run
experiments, in grad school.

--
SUN Microsystems:
The Network IS the Load Average.

Bob Eager wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> On Tue, 24 Sep 2024 23:45:51 +0000, rbowman wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 24 Sep 2024 21:14:04 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>>> PL/I was IBM’s attempt at a Grand Unification of both “business” and
>>> “scientific” programming in one language. If you thought C++
>>> programming was full of surprises when your program did unexpected
>>> things, PL/I invented the whole genre of “surprise-ridden programming
>>> language”
>>
>> IBM was always so modest. Programming Language One. A Programming
>> Language.
>
> A colleague of mine wrote a powerful macro processor (which I still use
> and maintain). He called it Macro Language One - ML/I. He loved taking the
> piss out of IBM.

What, no m4? :-)

My older projects use a lot of m4. For newer projects I'm using Meson.

--
Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.
-- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy,
Ecole Superieure de Guerre

Charlie Gibbs wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> On 2024-09-24, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 24 Sep 2024 18:24:02 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>
>>> So does PL/I (or is it PL/1 this week?), which allowed data structures
>>> to be declared COBOL-style.
>>
>> PL/I was IBM’s attempt at a Grand Unification of both “business” and
>> “scientific” programming in one language. If you thought C++ programming
>> was full of surprises when your program did unexpected things, PL/I
>> invented the whole genre of “surprise-ridden programming language”.
>
> I had to write one PL/I program in a university CS class. I think
> I finally got it to work (unlike my single attempt at Algol).
> One thing I noticed was that the compiler was a real resource
> hog compared to any other language (except for Assembler G,
> go figure) - which was a disincentive to use it on my meager
> supply of computer centre funny money.

In grad school a couple of my professors let me use their accounts, so I never
ran out of funny money. Needed that funny money to write my dissertation in the
DPS typesetting system on a DEC-10. It was vaguely like runoff/tex system.

--
Dismissed. That's a Star Fleet expression for, "Get out."
-- Capt. Kathryn Janeway, Star Trek: Voyager, "The Cloud"

rbowman wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> On Wed, 25 Sep 2024 11:03:13 +0800, Woozy Song wrote:
>
>> When I went to uni in the 70s, the computer science lecturer had a
>> hard-on for Pascal, the latest and greatest. Always slipped in snide
>> remarks about BASIC or COBOL in most classes.
>
> Better Pascal than Modula/Modula-2. I swear as soon as anybody figured
> out how to do anything useful with one of his languages Wirth designed a
> new, more obscure version.
>
> https://www.modula2.org/tutor/chapter8.php
>
> Chapter 8 - Input/Output
> In preparation
>
> That sums it up. I've heard Wirth's languages described as programs that
> are designed to tell secrets to themselves.

Wirth: His name is pronounced "virth" if by reference, and "worth" if by value.

I found the original Pascal to be confining.

--
Woke up this morning, don't believe what I saw.
Hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore.
Seems I'm not alone in being alone.
Hundred billion castaways looking for a call.
-- The Police, "Message in a Bottle"

The Natural Philosopher wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> On 24/09/2024 23:36, Peter Flass wrote:
>> R Daneel Olivaw <Danny@hyperspace.vogon.gov> wrote:
>>> rbowman wrote:
>>>> On Tue, 24 Sep 2024 14:11:19 +0100, Sn!pe wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> No mention of ALGOL, the ALGorithmic Language? It was contemporaneous
>>>>> with both FORmula TRANslator and COmmon Business-Oriented Language.
>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALGOL>
>>>>
>>>> ALGOL's impact on succeeding languages was much greater than its actual
>>>> use.
>>>>
>>>
>>> ALGOL60 was the language where a test of equality between two floating
>>> point numbers was actually a test of "close enough for ALGOL". If I
>>> want to test for "approximately equal" then I want a different operator.
>>> How well did it handle character strings? Any language which could not
>>> handle them was a language I wanted no part of.
>>
>> C is just pathetic at character strings.
>>
> Not really.
> They are clearly defined entities and you could construct any routines
> to manipualate them you liked

I agree. Although the GNU gettext C code is pretty damn hairy.

--
No foreign coins.

In article <llgrccFmmqaU9@mid.individual.net>,
Bob Eager <news0009@eager.cx> wrote:
>On Tue, 24 Sep 2024 17:12:30 +0000, Dan Cross wrote:
>
>> In article <llfsmdFmmqaU8@mid.individual.net>,
>> Bob Eager <news0009@eager.cx> wrote:
>>>I can't remember who originally wrote it, but I came across a version of
>>>'ed' (the standard UNIX editor, none of this visual stuff) written in
>>>FORTRAN.
>>
>> The first "Software Tools" book by Kernighan and Plauger was written
>> using "ratfor" as the example language; `ratfor` is a "rational FORTRAN"
>> frontend that took a semi-structured language as input and emitted
>> properly-formed FORTRAN code as output.
>>
>> They implemeneted an ed-like editor in ratfor for Software Tools. It
>> wouldn't surprise me if the editor you saw was that, or something
>> derived from it.
>
>No, it wasn't really. I implemented the ratfor one (and all the other
>tools), but the FORTRAN one I'm talking about looks pretty different.
>
>I still have all the files for the software tools in ratfor publihed by
>Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.

Huh; curious. I wonder who did it, then.

- Dan C.

Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
> rbowman wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:
>
>> On Wed, 25 Sep 2024 11:03:13 +0800, Woozy Song wrote:
>>
>>> When I went to uni in the 70s, the computer science lecturer had a
>>> hard-on for Pascal, the latest and greatest. Always slipped in snide
>>> remarks about BASIC or COBOL in most classes.
>>
>> Better Pascal than Modula/Modula-2. I swear as soon as anybody figured
>> out how to do anything useful with one of his languages Wirth designed a
>> new, more obscure version.
>>
>> https://www.modula2.org/tutor/chapter8.php
>>
>> Chapter 8 - Input/Output
>> In preparation
>>
>> That sums it up. I've heard Wirth's languages described as programs that
>> are designed to tell secrets to themselves.
>
> Wirth: His name is pronounced "virth" if by reference, and "worth" if by value.
>
> I found the original Pascal to be confining.
>

Hmm, your .sig is all about pollution of the seas.

Chris Ahlstrom <OFeem1987@teleworm.us> writes:
>rbowman wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:
>
>> On Wed, 25 Sep 2024 11:03:13 +0800, Woozy Song wrote:
>>
>>> When I went to uni in the 70s, the computer science lecturer had a
>>> hard-on for Pascal, the latest and greatest. Always slipped in snide
>>> remarks about BASIC or COBOL in most classes.
>>
>> Better Pascal than Modula/Modula-2. I swear as soon as anybody figured
>> out how to do anything useful with one of his languages Wirth designed a
>> new, more obscure version.
>>
>> https://www.modula2.org/tutor/chapter8.php
>>
>> Chapter 8 - Input/Output
>> In preparation
>>
>> That sums it up. I've heard Wirth's languages described as programs that
>> are designed to tell secrets to themselves.
>
>Wirth: His name is pronounced "virth" if by reference, and "worth" if by value.
>
>I found the original Pascal to be confining.
>

VAX-11 Pascal, on the other hand, was wonderful. Enough useful
extensions to make it a very viable systems programming language.