[net.lang] Survival of Fortran

bllklly@uwmacc.UUCP (07/11/84)

!"#$%&'()=~|-^\`{}*@[]:+;?/>.<,

>I were designing a language that was intended to be a major
>industry wide language I would, as a matter of course, make
>sure that the character set were compatible both with EBCDIC
>and ASCII and that programs in that language could be entered
>either on a 327x IBM terminal and a vt100.

If I remember Grady Booch's book on Ada correctly, DOD designed Ada
to use a subset of ASCII that would be available on virtually any
terminal owned by an employee of the Defense Dept.  I'm not familiar
with the details, but he said you could use more extended character
sets if you had them...wonder how you port your program if you do?
-- 

Bill Kelly
{allegra, ihnp4, seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!bllklly
1210 West Dayton St/U Wisconsin Madison/Mad WI 53706

dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (07/11/84)

<>
The point about FORTRAN's character-set conservatism is well-taken.  DEC
users probably do not know that braces ({}) are not a standard part of
EBCDIC, unless they are refugees from IBM or Burroughs systems.

jacob@hpfclo.UUCP (07/17/84)

Nf-From: hpfclo!jacob    Jul 16 16:22:00 1984


Ever wondered why Ada used parentheses for array subscripts
instead of square brackets?  Ever had to take an IBM terminal
into APL mode just to beat a square bracket out of it?

By the way, as far as I remember, the square brackets ARE part
of EBCDIC character set...

henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (07/24/84)

> By the way, as far as I remember, the square brackets ARE part
> of EBCDIC character set...

*Which* EBCDIC character set?  "EBCDIC" is not a unique identifier!
The precise character set of EBCDIC is a function of your printer and
its print element (ball, train, whatever).
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry

rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) (07/25/84)

>Ever wondered why Ada used parentheses for array subscripts
>instead of square brackets?  Ever had to take an IBM terminal
>into APL mode just to beat a square bracket out of it?
>
>By the way, as far as I remember, the square brackets ARE part
>of EBCDIC character set...

Well, there are plenty of terminals around in IBMland that don't have
brackets.  However, it's also true that there are square brackets in
EBCDIC.  In fact, you'll find that they show up in TWO places each, due to
some bizarrity with printer codes.  That makes it distinctly unpleasant,
since some software will recognize both "allowable" codes, some only one,
some only the other.
-- 
Dick Dunn	{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd		(303)444-5710 x3086
	...A friend of the devil is a friend of mine.