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: 103376,3413256b2f4bedfc X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!news.glorb.com!newscon02.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.net!newsmst01b.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.com!postmaster.news.prodigy.com!newssvr30.news.prodigy.com.POSTED!4988f22a!not-for-mail From: Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada References: <43045094_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net> Subject: Re: What was the first programming language to use 'generics'?... X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1437 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1441 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 69.237.166.136 X-Complaints-To: abuse@prodigy.net X-Trace: newssvr30.news.prodigy.com 1124645599 ST000 69.237.166.136 (Sun, 21 Aug 2005 13:33:19 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2005 13:33:19 EDT Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com X-UserInfo1: FKPO@MC@@S@QBTLYYZH@^SXBUSXB@DTMNHWB_EYLJZ]BGIELLNTC@AWZWDXZXQ[K\FFSKCVM@F_N_DOBWVWG__LG@VVOIPLIGX\\BU_B@\P\PFX\B[APHTWAHDCKJF^NHD[YJAZMCY_CWG[SX\Y]^KC\HSZRWSWKGAY_PC[BQ[BXAS\F\\@DMTLFZFUE@\VL Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2005 17:33:19 GMT Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:4242 Date: 2005-08-21T17:33:19+00:00 List-Id: "Martin Dowie" wrote in message news:43045094_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net... > ...and were they called 'generics'? > > Not Ada but I just know /someone/ here will know this! ;-) > My first exposure to generics was with generic sort programs. Consider, in the early sort programs supplied for operating systems we had a set of behaviors already programmed. All we had to do was supply a description of the data. Ada generics are a lot like that. We reuse behavior while describing the data to be processed with that behavior. With those sort facilities, we could even add some additional code for what we called an "own code" sort. Typically the "own code" was used to accomplish some special input or output procedures on the data. This is analogous to generic formal subprograms or (in Ada 95) generic formal package parameters. My earliest recollection of this was for the IBM 1401 where our "own code" was written in Autocoder. Later, I discovered this same capability was on other platforms, including the entire 360/370 series (along with those that used IBM's operating systems), and all the machines from the "seven dwarfs." COBOL even has a SORT verb as part of the language that one could think of as a generic capability. So, the first high-order language to have a generic capability might well be COBOL. Richard Riehle