Re: Have we reached the asymptotic plateau of innovation in programming la

[Some of us who programmed in ANSI Standard Fortran 66 and PL/I 76
might take issue with the claim that C standardized procedural
programming. Standard high level procedural interfaces to operating
systems aren't new either, Burroughs had them in Algol in the 1960s.
-John]


By "significant developments" and "standardizing" I meant that for
programmers to have settled on 1 hardware/OS architecture and 1
programming language is something new, and good. The time to which you
refer was the wild west of both, with new kids on the block every
year.


Most subsequent languages have copied the C *syntax*. For example, i++
is now a fairly standard idiom. Certainly fortran is still in wide
use, but who copies its syntax? Well, I guess C did borrow from its
formatted I/O...


How many Burroughs machines are now in use? Point is that Wintel
overwhelmed all other architectures, not that it invented the system
call. I claim this is a good thing for ease of code portability and
reuse.


Why is this defacto standarization good? Because AMD can go from
nothing to a huge software base overnight. Because Apple can run
windows software. Because I can read and understand javascript without
having learned it. An if statement is an if statement, but settling on
a singe syntax for it is beneficial.


Not that I am complaining about the variety of programming languages.
Migrating from brand X to C++ or java is what keeps me in business.


http://slkpg.byethost7.com
[I'm not sure a software monoculture is an innovation, much less
an interesting one. IBM faced antitrust suits in the 1960s and 70s
in both the US and Europe because their mainframes and OS/360 were
so dominant. And as far as who copies Fortran syntax, every time
you write a=b+c or if(a>b)c=d, or function foo(x,y), you're
writing in Fortran. -John]

Return to the comp.compilers page.
Search the comp.compilers archives again.