Re: SQL Implementation

joe.celko_at_northface.edu (--CELKO--) wrote in message news:<a264e7ea.0310031046.349c55c1_at_posting.google.com>...
> >> PL/I?: God, no! <<
>
> It compiled to over three times the size of a COBOL program to do the
> same job, and ALWAYS ran. Never mind that you wanted it to stop. The
> automatic type conversions could suddenly give you a payroll with
> complex numbers instead of a warning.
>
> >> Algol-68? with pleasure <<
>
> No, no, no. Algol-60 was a pleasure. Algol-65 was a clean up.
> Algol-68 was so complex that there were only three compilers for it
> (one was the Royal Radar guys in teh UK and I don't remember the other
> two -- colleges, I think). I still have the specs for it; I still
> cannot understand the meta-meta-language they invented.

maybe. it was on a Honeywell (nee: GE) 66/80. my recollection (going on 30 years) was that it was -68. memory is the second thing to go.

>
> >> ADA? it's still alive and kicking <<
>
> Nope. The Ada mandate was killed on 1998 Oct 01. I was with AIRMICS
> when ADA was created and had to write code in it without a compiler.
> The thing was awful and the first compilers took a year longer than
> planned because of the complexity. As InfoTech put it, there was no
> way to build a kernel then add to it to get a full language compiler
> -- you had to create the entire language all at once. A New York
> University built a compiler in SETL which had one error message and we
> played with that.
>
> What we actually did with Ada was write a C or Forth program then drop
> it into an Ada shell to get real-time systems to work.

in the sense that it still has more visibility than pl/1. which is not to say that it is hale and hearty. Received on Fri Oct 03 2003 - 23:09:20 CEST