Re: Pronouns in programming language?

John Fremlin <vii@altern.org> writes:
>
>Has any programming language/compiler implemented pronoun like
>constructs? For example:
>
> if variable_with_long_name == '2 ,
> { do this; }
> if it == '3 , # equivalent to: variable_with_long_name == '3
> { do that }
>... [snip}


There was an assembler (or modification to the IBM assembler? due to
Knuth?) for the IBM 650 where, as best I can recall, "points" (in the
sense of "here") could be defined. In the context of this suggestion,
a "point" said any "it" following, until "point" is redefined, is a
reference to this point. After a redefinition any following "it" was
a reference to the new definition. Points were numbered (a max of
10?). The motivation would have been to save space in the symbol
table on a machine with a memory of 10,000 bytes (I think that was the
common configuration).


For more current languages, the IF examples in the subject post look a
lot like case statments/constructs.


dick w
[Knuth used this in his MIX assembler, and it showed up in the PDP-11
Unix assembler as well. -John]

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