From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 5b1e799cdb,3ef3e78eacf6f938 X-Google-Attributes: gid5b1e799cdb,public,usenet X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!newsgate.cuhk.edu.hk!news.netfront.net!not-for-mail From: wwilson Newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel,comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.modula3,comp.programming Subject: Re: Alternatives to C: ObjectPascal, Eiffel, Ada or Modula-3? Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 01:01:45 -0400 Organization: Netfront http://www.netfront.net Message-ID: References: <4fc0934e-197b-4a02-a006-4b64072897b2@h18g2000yqj.googlegroups.com> <7020ad82-ed09-4c87-8f46-db23bf2fa866@32g2000yqj.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 68.73.98.219 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; delsp=yes; charset=iso-8859-15 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: adenine.netfront.net 1248757345 55297 68.73.98.219 (28 Jul 2009 05:02:25 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@netfront.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 05:02:25 +0000 (UTC) To: "Colin Paul Gloster" User-Agent: Opera Mail/9.61 (Win32) Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.eiffel:436 comp.lang.ada:7370 comp.lang.modula3:119 comp.programming:12069 Date: 2009-07-28T01:01:45-04:00 List-Id: On Mon, 27 Jul 2009 07:28:39 -0400, Colin Paul Gloster wrote: > On Sat, 25 Jul 2009, wwilson wrote: > > |--------------------------------------------------------------------------------| > |"[..] > | > | > | > |One thing that made a difference is that some of the common languaages > of that | > |era were designed so that the compiler could determine the kind of > statement | > |from the first two or three letters of the statement. Both FORTRAN and > the | > |early BASICs were this way. > [..] | > | > | > |[..]" > | > |--------------------------------------------------------------------------------| > > What about the inability to distinguish between > DO 10 I = 1.10 > (the assignment DO10I=1.10) > and > DO 10 I = 1,10 > (loop to Statement Label 10 for i in 1..10) > in FORTRAN before coming to the radix point or the comma? > > Regards, > Colin Paul Gloster Hey Colin Glad to hear from someone else who remembers the good old days. As you know, this was a common beginner (both user and compiler writer) difficulty in FORTRAN. Your first example is correct. ANSI FORTRAN called for ignorimg most blanks including this case. ANSI complient compilers would indeed translate your first statement as an assignment. However, most FORTRAN compilers were not ANSI complient. (At one time or another I used, and kept track of, over 30 varieties of FORTRAN. It was an interesting and tedious job! I even wrote a report for US Army labs on "least common denominator FORTRAN" which is just what it sounds like.) You were liable to see almost anything in these versions. Many for example allowed you to include assembly language mixed in with the FORTRAN. (This was before stuctured assembly languages and they filled a definite need.) Many had additional data types (complex and interval to name two). To simplify compilation (or because the compiler writer didn't know or care) many of these varieties used "DO " as a reserved word (although FORTRAN had no reserved words). I think this was more common on FORTRANs for small computers though I have no proof. Thank you for pointing out a distinction I should have made. Any other cases that I missed? -- Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/