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From:	John Doty <jpd AT noqsi DOT com>
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Date:	Fri, 14 Dec 2012 02:30:39 -0700
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On Dec 13, 2012, at 6:19 PM, DJ Delorie wrote:

> 
>> To expand on my confusion, I cannot understand how this could be
>> difficult given that pcb is supposed to create a geometric
>> arrangement of conductors and insulators implementing a netlist. But
>> I find pcb very confusing in general. I cannot actually find in its
>> design the concepts of "conductor", "insulator" and "geometry".
> 
> Your error is in the "is supposed to" assumption.
> 
> The purpose of PCB is to help people design circuit boards.

The purpose of PL/I was to help people write programs. Chaotic, confusing design prevented it from succeeding. It was designed by the smartest people IBM could get. It was still a flop. And C, with its emphasis on cleanly exposing the underlying hardware (*not* so much helping people to write programs), stole PL/I's lunch. Given a simple, comprehensible tool, people figured out how to use it to write programs without all those "helpful" PL/I features.

John Doty              Noqsi Aerospace, Ltd.
http://www.noqsi.com/
jpd AT noqsi DOT com

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