Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu>]

In comp.lang.fortran Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Fritz Wuehler wrote:
(snip)
>> The IBM assembler macro processor *is* part of the assembler and *is*
>> tightly bound to the language.
 
> Sort of.  OS/360 SYSGEN used the assembler as part of its process, but 
> it didn't really assemble anything.  The sysprog coded assembler macros 
> to specify the options he wanted included in the system, the macros were 
> processed by the assembler, which punched a "stage 2" deck of JCL and 
> utility control cards.

Yes.  With the assembler PUNCH opcode you can send any string
that you can create using the assembler's string processing
out SYSPUNCH.  (Where object code normally goes.)

Also, in the early microprocessor days it was often used to
assemble code for other processors.  With a macro for each
opcode in the target assembly laanguage, it wasn't hard to do.
The assembler arithmetic operations were used to generate
the little-endian absolute addresses needed.

There was a program to convert the object deck output to the
formats needed, such as motorola hex format (often used to
write EPROMS), and another to make the listing file look like
one would expect.

> The PL/I preprocessor is part of the compiler, but I have used it for 
> macro processing completely unrelated to PL/I.

It is more powerful, but less general than the C preprocessor.
The input has to make some sense in terms of the PL/I syntax,
where the C preprocessor will do substitutions even in what
doesn't look much like C.  

-- glen