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Date: Mon, 06 Jul 2015 11:32:24 -0700
From: "Girvin R. Herr (gherr375 AT sbcglobal DOT net) [via geda-user AT delorie DOT com]" <geda-user AT delorie DOT com>
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Subject: Re: [geda-user] gEDA/gschem still alive?
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On 07/06/2015 07:40 AM, John Doty wrote:
> On Jul 4, 2015, at 9:28 PM, Evan Foss (evanfoss AT gmail DOT com) [via geda-user AT delorie DOT com] <geda-user AT delorie DOT com> wrote:
>
>> Imagine if the source was written in PL/I. How much development in the
>> future would you expect it to get?
> I suspect the majority on this list lack much understanding of the reference. PL/I(F) was the fourth programming language I learned, and later I used Multics PL/I and PL/M for a variety of purposes.
>
> PL/I(F) was extremely feature-rich, and that was its downfall. There were too many subtle pitfalls the programmer had to watch out for. Innocent-looking expressions like “N/3” could do crazy things.
>
> It’s proof that the quality of the designer is not a good predictor of the quality of the product. The designers and promoters of PL/I included many of the leading computer scientists of the 1960’s. So, don’t take it to heart when somebody criticizes your software. Good ideas can lead to bad software, especially *too many* good ideas.
>
> Later dialects like PL/I(G) and PL/M were simplified, with many features removed. PL/M’s semantics were similar to C. These never achieved the the status C achieved from being the implementation language of a powerful general-purpose OS running on cost-effective hardware. Alternate history fans might ponder what computing would be like today if MSDOS had used PL/M.
>
> John Doty              Noqsi Aerospace, Ltd.
> http://www.noqsi.com/
> jpd AT noqsi DOT com
>
John,
More history:
In the early 80s, IBM first went to Gary Kildall of CP/M for their 
IBM-PC DOS.  CP/M did have several PL/M modules (pip for one).  If Gary 
had not ignored IBM and go sailing instead of meeting with the IBM 
execs, IBM PC-DOS may have had some PL/M in it.  However, we got ms-dos 
instead.  As I understand it, Kildall used a DEC PDP minicomputer 
running a PL/M cross compiler in order to develop CP/M.

Back then, Intel pushed PL/M for their software development packages.  I 
used it on several projects in the 80s and ran into it again on a legacy 
bugfix project in the early 2000s.  By then it was getting difficult to 
find info on it to refresh my memory.

Girvin Herr