Lots of familiar languages but not seen Coral66 mentioned; anyone
here ever use it? I have a particular computer and military system in
mind and am involved with its restoration.

Mike

On 02/02/15 15:39, Dennis@home wrote:

FORTRAN is Ok, I learnt it while at primary school aged 9.
We had to hand punch cards and send them to IC to run the programs.

I don't like C or C++ even though I have had to use them.

I quite liked pl/m 86 (and RMX 86) when I used them.

ASM86 was OK.

Embedded SQL was so boring as is all database stuff that I worked on.

FORTRAN (77) was "good at maths".

That was about it IME. I learnt C at the first opportunity.

FORTRAN was ugly, limited structure, poor IO and generally horrid in so
many ways. But for a scientist, it was very solid, and got the job done.

On 02/02/15 17:21, Tim Streater wrote:
And it was everywhere as a scientific language. All the library
packages were written in it. Certainly when I was at CERN (1968 to
1981) no physicist would have used anything else. But your criticisms
are entirely valid.


Indeed - and the fact as you say there were loads of libraries.

IIRC FORTRAN was faster at "maths" than C.

In article ,
Tim Watts wrote:
On 02/02/15 15:39, Dennis@home wrote:

FORTRAN is Ok, I learnt it while at primary school aged 9.
We had to hand punch cards and send them to IC to run the programs.

I don't like C or C++ even though I have had to use them.

I quite liked pl/m 86 (and RMX 86) when I used them.

ASM86 was OK.

Embedded SQL was so boring as is all database stuff that I worked on.

FORTRAN (77) was "good at maths".

That was about it IME. I learnt C at the first opportunity.

FORTRAN was ugly, limited structure, poor IO and generally horrid in so
many ways. But for a scientist, it was very solid, and got the job done.

This.

FORmula TRAnslation

Without all the added guff that comes with everything else.

In its original form, it's a relatively simple language - easy to compile
and easier for the later, clever compilers to recognise vectorisation
optimisations and so on.

It would not surprise me if some of the current maths libraries are still
written in FORTRAN, but called from other languages such as Python, C, etc.

Gordon

On Friday, 30 January 2015 10:28:21 UTC, Huge wrote:
On 2015-01-29, SL&gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, 28 January 2015 21:48:48 UTC, Ferretygubbins wrote:

Boy1 (13) is interested in learning how to write code and so I would like
...

JavaScript .... The language is a bit like C.

The language is not even remotely like 'C'.

Remember that we are talking about a new, non-adult, programmer.

JavaScript is much more like C, from the point of view of such a person, than, for example, are Pascal, assembly, APL, Forth, FORTRAN, DOS Batch.

It does not need to be purchased, since it can be executed in free Web browsers sich as Firefox and Chrome (which have debugging tools). It does not need to be compiled. In that form, it is sandboxed; it should not be able to harm the system in which it runs.

But it can write to the system when run in an HTA or in Windows Scripting Host, a matter of which Ferretygubbins would need to be aware.

--
SL

On Mon, 02 Feb 2015 18:07:11 +0000, Gordon Henderson wrote:

FORTRAN was ugly, limited structure, poor IO and generally horrid in so
many ways. But for a scientist, it was very solid, and got the job done.

This.

FORmula TRAnslation

Without all the added guff that comes with everything else.

In its original form, it's a relatively simple language - easy to
compile

FSVO 'easy'. I didn't like the ambiguity of a line starting: DO10I= !!



--
My posts are my copyright and if @diy_forums or Home Owners' Hub
wish to copy them they can pay me £30a message.
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

On 02/02/2015 15:49, wrote:

Lots of familiar languages but not seen Coral66 mentioned; anyone
here ever use it?

Yup, loads of times alas!

(its kind of like Pascal with all the nice bits taken out)

I have a particular computer and military system in
mind and am involved with its restoration.

Yup it was often used for MoD contracts. It kind of had a place many
years ago when the amount of data throughput through systems was small,
memory was scarce, and readability and maintainability of code was
paramount.

Its a struggle to use elegantly for anything modern with a large amount
of data to handle, since there are no user defined types, and the
nearest thing you will get to a data structure is an array of integers!

(most of the development tools also suck to some greater or lesser extent)


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Tue, 03 Feb 2015 00:03:40 +0000, John Rumm
wrote:

On 02/02/2015 15:49, wrote:

Lots of familiar languages but not seen Coral66 mentioned; anyone
here ever use it?

Yup, loads of times alas!

(its kind of like Pascal with all the nice bits taken out)

I have a particular computer and military system in
mind and am involved with its restoration.

Yup it was often used for MoD contracts. It kind of had a place many
years ago when the amount of data throughput through systems was small,
memory was scarce, and readability and maintainability of code was
paramount.

Its a struggle to use elegantly for anything modern with a large amount
of data to handle, since there are no user defined types, and the
nearest thing you will get to a data structure is an array of integers!

(most of the development tools also suck to some greater or lesser extent)

Ah so you really liked it then John

I am part of a team restoring a Bloodhound MK2 missile system launch
control post operating only in simulation mode; it uses the Ferranti
Argus 700 computer (see Wikipedia).

We now have it all working again despite it having spent about 25
years without power laying in a field. We have one Winchester drive
left with the operational code but do not have the source code which
was written in Coral66.

Our weakest link is the storage medium for being able to ensure that
it will remain functional so are working on first a SCSI replacement
(because it has been done before) followed by solid state. Whilst we
have the source code for another version we would feel much safer if
we had our own plus development tools ... always possible it is
lurking on a tape in someone's attic as it is amazing what has
surfaced!

It is intended to have the kit on display in a new museum by 2017
alongside a missile, launcher that is already on site and our Ferranti
radar; find us at http://www.bmpg.org.uk/ This is a totally privately
funded project so DIY at its finest!

Mike

On Mon, 02 Feb 2015 16:24:52 +0000, Tim Watts
wrote:

On 02/02/15 15:39, Dennis@home wrote:

FORTRAN is Ok, I learnt it while at primary school aged 9.
We had to hand punch cards and send them to IC to run the programs.

I don't like C or C++ even though I have had to use them.

I quite liked pl/m 86 (and RMX 86) when I used them.

ASM86 was OK.

Embedded SQL was so boring as is all database stuff that I worked on.

FORTRAN (77) was "good at maths".

That was about it IME. I learnt C at the first opportunity.

FORTRAN was ugly, limited structure, poor IO and generally horrid in so
many ways. But for a scientist, it was very solid, and got the job done.

My first serious programming language back in 1970. Needed to
calculate the seat/mile cost of an aircraft given the airframe and
engine characteristics. A few weeks using log tables and slide rules.
A one-off few weeks to learn Fortran. We had two IBM 1130s at our
disposal and if in a hurry could punch the cards and load the stack
ourselves. Oh - and that's engineer - not scientist.

Probably do it all in Excel with a bit of VBA now.

--
AnthonyL

John Rumm wrote:
On 02/02/2015 15:49, wrote:

Lots of familiar languages but not seen Coral66 mentioned; anyone
here ever use it?

Yup, loads of times alas!

(its kind of like Pascal with all the nice bits taken out)

IIRC it was really Algol 60 with all the nice bits taken out and some
really nasty additions like bit field structures that never seemed to
work and clunky I/O support (PDP11 anyway) that were the first things to
be thrown away.

There seemed to be an unspoken pressure to use it because it was local
though C was around at the time and much better suited to constrained
environments.


I have a particular computer and military system in
mind and am involved with its restoration.

Yup it was often used for MoD contracts. It kind of had a place many
years ago when the amount of data throughput through systems was small,
memory was scarce, and readability and maintainability of code was
paramount.

Its a struggle to use elegantly for anything modern with a large amount
of data to handle, since there are no user defined types, and the
nearest thing you will get to a data structure is an array of integers!

(most of the development tools also suck to some greater or lesser extent)



Chris K

On 03/02/2015 06:36, wrote:
On Tue, 03 Feb 2015 00:03:40 +0000, John Rumm
wrote:

On 02/02/2015 15:49, wrote:

Lots of familiar languages but not seen Coral66 mentioned; anyone
here ever use it?

Yup, loads of times alas!

(its kind of like Pascal with all the nice bits taken out)

I have a particular computer and military system in
mind and am involved with its restoration.

Yup it was often used for MoD contracts. It kind of had a place many
years ago when the amount of data throughput through systems was small,
memory was scarce, and readability and maintainability of code was
paramount.

Its a struggle to use elegantly for anything modern with a large amount
of data to handle, since there are no user defined types, and the
nearest thing you will get to a data structure is an array of integers!

(most of the development tools also suck to some greater or lesser extent)

Ah so you really liked it then John

Its shows doesn't it ;-)

I am part of a team restoring a Bloodhound MK2 missile system launch
control post operating only in simulation mode; it uses the Ferranti
Argus 700 computer (see Wikipedia).

We now have it all working again despite it having spent about 25
years without power laying in a field.

Sounds like a good result.

We have one Winchester drive
left with the operational code but do not have the source code which
was written in Coral66.

With systems of that age its a not uncommon problem. Often a result of
hardware production lines not really understanding the concept of
software. I have seen a number of projects where it became apparent that
changes were needed to some old software, and when asked where it was,
all they could find was the master PROM that was kept in a secure
cupboard in the production facility. That was the one they took from the
shelf, and carefully copied to make each new board. As to where the
source code was (let alone any more nuanced nicety like what
configuration or build state the code on the prom was anyone's guess.

Our weakest link is the storage medium for being able to ensure that
it will remain functional so are working on first a SCSI replacement
(because it has been done before) followed by solid state. Whilst we
have the source code for another version we would feel much safer if
we had our own plus development tools ... always possible it is
lurking on a tape in someone's attic as it is amazing what has
surfaced!

You may be lucky... I know of one GEC project where they dug some old
Intel MDS development systems out of the stores, and by fluke found they
had the required source code on disks that had been packed away with them.

It is intended to have the kit on display in a new museum by 2017
alongside a missile, launcher that is already on site and our Ferranti
radar; find us at http://www.bmpg.org.uk/ This is a totally privately
funded project so DIY at its finest!

Indeed!


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 2015-02-01, wrote:

Martin Bonner wrote:

I find Python easy to read and write, and (more to the point) my son
found it fairly easy to pick up at 16.

[...]

I also dislike python, although it has its uses (and a wide variety of
special purpose libraries). However, in case you consider it a useful
piece of information, note that the Physics dept at Imperial College
teaches python in first year physics.

The significance of whitespace still bugs me, although I'm learning
not to grumble about it. The libraries are great, though; even the
standard library is pretty rich.

On 03/02/2015 12:59, ChrisK wrote:
John Rumm wrote:
On 02/02/2015 15:49, wrote:

Lots of familiar languages but not seen Coral66 mentioned; anyone
here ever use it?

Yup, loads of times alas!

(its kind of like Pascal with all the nice bits taken out)

IIRC it was really Algol 60 with all the nice bits taken out and some

Also a fair comment - again a block structured readable language. I
normally use Pascal as a starting point since modern programmers might
have a feel for what that looks like ;-) But it is indeed a derivative
of ALGOL

really nasty additions like bit field structures that never seemed to
work and clunky I/O support (PDP11 anyway) that were the first things to
be thrown away.

There seemed to be an unspoken pressure to use it because it was local
though C was around at the time and much better suited to constrained
environments.

Often because MoD specified it as one of the acceptable languages.



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

In article ,
Tim Streater wrote:
In article , Adam Funk
wrote:

On 2015-02-01, wrote:

Martin Bonner wrote:

I find Python easy to read and write, and (more to the point) my son
found it fairly easy to pick up at 16.

[...]

I also dislike python, although it has its uses (and a wide variety of
special purpose libraries). However, in case you consider it a useful
piece of information, note that the Physics dept at Imperial College
teaches python in first year physics.

The significance of whitespace still bugs me, ...

Whitespace should *not* be significant; there are no other contexts in
life in which it is. This idea is just a throwback to the days of
FORTRAN.

There is another language where whitespace is significant; OCCAM...

Gordon

On 03/02/2015 13:49, Tim Streater wrote:

snip

Whitespace should *not* be significant; there are no other contexts in
life in which it is. This idea is just a throwback to the days of
FORTRAN.


Whitespaceshould*not*besignificant;therearenoother contextsinlifeinwhichitis.


Cheers
--
Syd

On 03/02/15 13:49, Tim Streater wrote:

Whitespace should *not* be significant; there are no other contexts in
life in which it is. This idea is just a throwback to the days of
FORTRAN.


Ah, a new way to insult my python colleagues... Excellent

If you don't hear from me after tomorrow, I'll be in Guy's Hospital...

On 03/02/15 13:47, John Rumm wrote:
On 03/02/2015 12:59, ChrisK wrote:
John Rumm wrote:
On 02/02/2015 15:49, wrote:

Lots of familiar languages but not seen Coral66 mentioned; anyone
here ever use it?

Yup, loads of times alas!

(its kind of like Pascal with all the nice bits taken out)

IIRC it was really Algol 60 with all the nice bits taken out and some

Also a fair comment - again a block structured readable language. I
normally use Pascal as a starting point since modern programmers might
have a feel for what that looks like ;-) But it is indeed a derivative
of ALGOL

really nasty additions like bit field structures that never seemed to
work and clunky I/O support (PDP11 anyway) that were the first things to
be thrown away.

There seemed to be an unspoken pressure to use it because it was local
though C was around at the time and much better suited to constrained
environments.

Often because MoD specified it as one of the acceptable languages.


IIRC it had been in some way 'validated for military use' and C had not...

There was IIRC some pressure to make compiler not be too smart in case
the code they turned out wasn't what was expected..this was relevant for
real time programming.

Does what it says on the tin is good practice for things that go bang,
as against does lots more stuff and occasionally has a mind of its own...





--
Everything you read in newspapers is absolutely true, except for the
rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge. €“ Erwin Knoll

On 03/02/15 13:49, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , Adam Funk
wrote:

On 2015-02-01, wrote:

Martin Bonner wrote:

I find Python easy to read and write, and (more to the point) my son
found it fairly easy to pick up at 16.

[...]

I also dislike python, although it has its uses (and a wide variety
of special purpose libraries). However, in case you consider it a
useful piece of information, note that the Physics dept at Imperial
College teaches python in first year physics.

The significance of whitespace still bugs me, ...

Whitespace should *not* be significant; there are no other contexts in
life in which it is. This idea is just a throwback to the days of
FORTRAN.

I was in tears of frustration after keying on my first z80 assembler
program EXACTLY as the sample was p[resented in the manual. Yea, even
unto the single leading space on every line that the typesetter had
added to make it look 'nice'.....




--
Everything you read in newspapers is absolutely true, except for the
rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge. €“ Erwin Knoll

On 03/02/2015 15:25, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , Syd Rumpo
wrote:

On 03/02/2015 13:49, Tim Streater wrote:

snip

Whitespace should *not* be significant; there are no other contexts in
life in which it is. This idea is just a throwback to the days of
FORTRAN.

Whitespaceshould*not*besignificant;therearenoother contextsinlifeinwhichitis.


Very witty; have a banana.

Consider my OP to be altered to "Whitespace beyond a single whitespace
char should not be significant ...".

I'm sure there's a proper phrase that "whitespace other than a single
separator char should have no lexical/semantic/syntactic significance
..." or similar and no doubt a proper computer scientist will be along
in a minute to correct me.

I know nothing of Python. In Forth (that most noble of languages)
whitespace - whether one or more spaces, tabs, returns or line feeds -
is essentially the only separator.

So I'd agree with your modified statement. I remember a long time back
having to count the spaces when entering numbers into a Fortran program,
otherwise you'd get a wrong answer.

Oh, thanks for the banana.

Cheers
--
Syd

On 28/01/2015 21:48, Ferretygubbins wrote:
I know this is OT but I rather suspect that some of you will be able to
help.

Boy1 (13) is interested in learning how to write code and so I would
like to set him up with a toolkit for his PC (Windows) unfortunately my
programming days are somewhat in the past and restricted to MUMPS which
was archaic even back then. Has anyone any suggestions for a suitable
platform? As ever the cheaper the better.

Cheers

Mark


Whatever the choice, programming a version of Langton's Ant (see
Wikipedia) makes an interesting first project.

Cheers
--
Syd

In article ,
Tim Streater wrote:

The significance of whitespace still bugs me, ...

Whitespace should *not* be significant; there are no other contexts in
life in which it is. This idea is just a throwback to the days of
FORTRAN.

Ah, just remembered (because I've just been editong one), there's another
place its relevant - Makefiles. Commands after a target match have to
be TAB indented. Thats using a TAB character, not 8 spaces which you
often end up with after copy & pasting |-:

Gordon

On 03/02/2015 15:29, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 03/02/15 13:47, John Rumm wrote:
On 03/02/2015 12:59, ChrisK wrote:
John Rumm wrote:
On 02/02/2015 15:49, wrote:

Lots of familiar languages but not seen Coral66 mentioned; anyone
here ever use it?

Yup, loads of times alas!

(its kind of like Pascal with all the nice bits taken out)

IIRC it was really Algol 60 with all the nice bits taken out and some

Also a fair comment - again a block structured readable language. I
normally use Pascal as a starting point since modern programmers might
have a feel for what that looks like ;-) But it is indeed a derivative
of ALGOL

really nasty additions like bit field structures that never seemed to
work and clunky I/O support (PDP11 anyway) that were the first things to
be thrown away.

There seemed to be an unspoken pressure to use it because it was local
though C was around at the time and much better suited to constrained
environments.

Often because MoD specified it as one of the acceptable languages.


IIRC it had been in some way 'validated for military use' and C had not...

There was/is a standard set of test programs that a compiler must be
able to compile if its to claim to meet the standard, but I am not sure
if they got any more validation than that. C was (at least in the
80's/90's viewed with much suspicion in UK defence circles), just
because of its lack of readability.

There was IIRC some pressure to make compiler not be too smart in case
the code they turned out wasn't what was expected..this was relevant for
real time programming.

Yes very much so - hence why things like C++ were used sparingly since
it was far harder to mentally "count the cycles"

Does what it says on the tin is good practice for things that go bang,
as against does lots more stuff and occasionally has a mind of its own...

Alas most^h^h^h^h all the CORAL compilers I have used tend to fall into
that category as well! (not to mention frequently being the slowest
thing you can do with a VAX short of rolling it up hill).



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

In article ,
Syd Rumpo wrote:
On 28/01/2015 21:48, Ferretygubbins wrote:
I know this is OT but I rather suspect that some of you will be able to
help.

Boy1 (13) is interested in learning how to write code and so I would
like to set him up with a toolkit for his PC (Windows) unfortunately my
programming days are somewhat in the past and restricted to MUMPS which
was archaic even back then. Has anyone any suggestions for a suitable
platform? As ever the cheaper the better.

Cheers

Mark


Whatever the choice, programming a version of Langton's Ant (see
Wikipedia) makes an interesting first project.

One I've not heard of - but since it was "invented" in 1986 and I started
programming almost 10 years earlier, it's no surprise (to me, anyway!)

So for a bit of fun in my BASIC:

// Langton's ant

// The rules are simple: Our ant starts in the middle then:
// At a white square, turn right, flip the square colour,
// move forward 1 square.
// At a black square, turn left, flip the square colour,
// move forward 1 square.


x = gwidth / 2
y = gheight / 2
direction = 0

cls

cycle

if getpixel (x, y) = black then
direction = direction + 1
if direction = 4 then direction = 0
colour = white
plot (x, y)
else
direction = direction - 1
if direction = -1 then direction = 3
colour = black
plot (x, y)
endif

proc updateAnt

update
repeat

def proc updateAnt
switch (direction)
case 0
y = y + 1
endcase

case 1
x = x + 1
endcase

case 2
y = y - 1
endcase

case 3
x = x - 1
endcase

endswitch
endproc

Seems to produce the desired output.

Note: spaced indentation is not significant, nor forced. It's there for
my convenience, not the computers!

That's quite a good one - nice and simple. Doesn't need an array if the
display device can be read back (not always possible or very inneficient
on some modern systems!)

Gordon

On 03/02/2015 16:56, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 03/02/15 13:49, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , Adam Funk
wrote:

On 2015-02-01, wrote:

Martin Bonner wrote:

I find Python easy to read and write, and (more to the point) my son
found it fairly easy to pick up at 16.

[...]

I also dislike python, although it has its uses (and a wide variety
of special purpose libraries). However, in case you consider it a
useful piece of information, note that the Physics dept at Imperial
College teaches python in first year physics.

The significance of whitespace still bugs me, ...

Whitespace should *not* be significant; there are no other contexts in
life in which it is. This idea is just a throwback to the days of
FORTRAN.

I was in tears of frustration after keying on my first z80 assembler
program EXACTLY as the sample was p[resented in the manual. Yea, even
unto the single leading space on every line that the typesetter had
added to make it look 'nice'.....

It was quite entertaining attempting to coach a tech pubs department
through producing a coding standards document - this was where they did
not trust engineers to use word processors, so you would give them a
document produced in a word processor. They would ignore the the fact
that someone already had a file with the whole thing in it, and then
re-key the whole thing into their own incompatible system - while at the
same time correcting all the "errors" in the snippets of program code
left in by those illiterate engineers ;-)

I think it was about iteration six or seven when they agreed that they
would use our document if we let them put their own front pages on it!

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Tuesday, 3 February 2015 13:49:18 UTC, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , Adam Funk
wrote:

On 2015-02-01, wrote:

Martin Bonner wrote:

I find Python easy to read and write, and (more to the point) my son
found it fairly easy to pick up at 16.

[...]

I also dislike python, although it has its uses (and a wide variety of
special purpose libraries). However, in case you consider it a useful
piece of information, note that the Physics dept at Imperial College
teaches python in first year physics.

The significance of whitespace still bugs me, ...

Whitespace should *not* be significant; there are no other contexts in
life in which it is. This idea is just a throwback to the days of
FORTRAN.

Excuse me? Once you were past the label and continuation columns,
whitespace was completely irrelevant to FORTRAN. (Hence the ambiguity
of DO 10 I = 1.10 vs DO10I=1,10 - One is the Fortran equivalent of
the C "float do10i = 1.10", the other is the equivalent of "for (i=1; i11;i++)".

I'm pretty sure there a English sentences which are ambiguous without
whitespace.

On 03/02/15 18:44, Martin Bonner wrote:
I'm pretty sure there a English sentences which are ambiguous without
whitespace.

Mrrabbitthevicar

Mr Rab bit the Vicar.
Mr Rabbit the Vicar.

--
Everything you read in newspapers is absolutely true, except for the
rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge. €“ Erwin Knoll

On 02/02/2015 21:04, wrote:
Remember that we are talking about a new, non-adult, programmer.

JavaScript is much more like C, from the point of view of such a person, than, for example, are Pascal, assembly, APL, Forth, FORTRAN, DOS Batch.

It does not need to be purchased, since it can be executed in free Web browsers sich as Firefox and Chrome (which have debugging tools). It does not need to be compiled. In that form, it is sandboxed; it should not be able to harm the system in which it runs.

But it can write to the system when run in an HTA or in Windows Scripting Host, a matter of which Ferretygubbins would need to be aware.

You can download a reduced version of MS's tools for free. (they seem to
encourage people to learn Windows development). You can have a
reasonable, if slightly dated C; a fairly good C++; and of course their
own C# - which is easier to learn.

And to be honest now I'm working on Android I really miss MS's tools.

And their documentation. When I want to open a file I just want to know
how to do it. I don't _need_ to know how the FS does it under the hood,
and sometime I find I have to reverse engineer the source just to get
the interface

Andy

On 2015-02-03, Tim Streater wrote:

In article , Adam Funk
wrote:
On 2015-02-01, wrote:

I also dislike python, although it has its uses (and a wide variety of
special purpose libraries). However, in case you consider it a useful
piece of information, note that the Physics dept at Imperial College
teaches python in first year physics.

The significance of whitespace still bugs me, ...

Whitespace should *not* be significant; there are no other contexts in
life in which it is. This idea is just a throwback to the days of
FORTRAN.

Well, there are two ways of looking at that. I actually used FORTRAN
(maybe we called it Fortran by then; I'm not sure) in the late 1980s,
& often ran into syntax errors caused by overtyping past column 72.

OTOH, "Consistently separating words by spaces became a general custom
about the tenth century A. D., and lasted until about 1957, when
FORTRAN abandoned the practice." It used to be the case that if you
called a variable DODO, the compiler would parse it as DO DO & your
program would be dead as a....

On 2015-02-03, Tim Watts wrote:

On 03/02/15 13:49, Tim Streater wrote:

Whitespace should *not* be significant; there are no other contexts in
life in which it is. This idea is just a throwback to the days of
FORTRAN.


Ah, a new way to insult my python colleagues... Excellent

If you don't hear from me after tomorrow, I'll be in Guy's Hospital...

Note that "Guy" & "Guido" are the same...

On 2015-02-03, Tim Streater wrote:

And my tab chars are five, not eight spaces long.

Heretic!!!

On 03/02/2015 21:58, Adam Funk wrote:
On 2015-02-03, Tim Streater wrote:

In article , Adam Funk
wrote:
On 2015-02-01, wrote:

I also dislike python, although it has its uses (and a wide variety of
special purpose libraries). However, in case you consider it a useful
piece of information, note that the Physics dept at Imperial College
teaches python in first year physics.

The significance of whitespace still bugs me, ...

Whitespace should *not* be significant; there are no other contexts in
life in which it is. This idea is just a throwback to the days of
FORTRAN.

Well, there are two ways of looking at that. I actually used FORTRAN
(maybe we called it Fortran by then; I'm not sure) in the late 1980s,
& often ran into syntax errors caused by overtyping past column 72.

OTOH, "Consistently separating words by spaces became a general custom
about the tenth century A. D., and lasted until about 1957, when
FORTRAN abandoned the practice." It used to be the case that if you
called a variable DODO, the compiler would parse it as DO DO & your
program would be dead as a....

I'd just call it a pile of .....

I also used Fortran, but didn't see any advantage over basic. I felt
learning Pascal and then C was more useful.

in 1366734 20150203 215948 Adam Funk wrote:
On 2015-02-03, Tim Watts wrote:

On 03/02/15 13:49, Tim Streater wrote:

Whitespace should *not* be significant; there are no other contexts in
life in which it is. This idea is just a throwback to the days of
FORTRAN.


Ah, a new way to insult my python colleagues... Excellent

If you don't hear from me after tomorrow, I'll be in Guy's Hospital...

Note that "Guy" & "Guido" are the same...

Guido works for Google now ...

On 03/02/2015 21:58, Adam Funk wrote:
On 2015-02-03, Tim Streater wrote:

In article , Adam Funk
wrote:
On 2015-02-01, wrote:

I also dislike python, although it has its uses (and a wide variety of
special purpose libraries). However, in case you consider it a useful
piece of information, note that the Physics dept at Imperial College
teaches python in first year physics.

The significance of whitespace still bugs me, ...

Whitespace should *not* be significant; there are no other contexts in
life in which it is. This idea is just a throwback to the days of
FORTRAN.

Well, there are two ways of looking at that. I actually used FORTRAN
(maybe we called it Fortran by then; I'm not sure) in the late 1980s,
& often ran into syntax errors caused by overtyping past column 72.

I don't recall such problems with any of the compilers I used. It would
have been FORTRAN77 by then - earlier compilers were less forgiving.

OTOH, "Consistently separating words by spaces became a general custom
about the tenth century A. D., and lasted until about 1957, when
FORTRAN abandoned the practice." It used to be the case that if you
called a variable DODO, the compiler would parse it as DO DO & your
program would be dead as a....

That is incorrect at least in correctly implemented FORTRAN compilers
there are no reserved words and as such you could have coding horrors
that used any reserved word you liked in any position no matter how
crazy for example the arithmetic statement function:

FORMAT(A4)= A4+1.0

Lurking at the top of deliberately obfuscated code. It did crash some
weaker compilers but it should not crash any of the mainstream ones.

Or equally unwise but still syntactically valid

IF (IF .EQ. THEN) IF = IF*THEN

Or the malformed DO loop that was actually typed in as

DO 13 I = 1.3

Spaces are insignificant and the mistake is full stop "." vs comma ",".
It set variable DO13I = 1.3 instead of looping to 13 3 times. This text
ambiguity led to the loss of Mariner 1 in 1963 see 6.8 Warning at

http://math.scu.edu/~dsmolars/ma60/nchpt6.html

Or the "reserved words" section at:
http://www.math-cs.gordon.edu/course...N/fortran.html

Defensive programming practice in later years used IMPLICIT to prevent
accidental assignments to typos from getting through unnoticed.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On 03/02/2015 21:58, Adam Funk wrote:

snip

OTOH, "Consistently separating words by spaces became a general custom
about the tenth century A. D., and lasted until about 1957, when
FORTRAN abandoned the practice."

Bringing to mind the ancient example from BASIC...

FORK = 10 TOMATOES

Cheers
--
Syd

In article ,
Syd Rumpo wrote:
On 03/02/2015 21:58, Adam Funk wrote:

snip

OTOH, "Consistently separating words by spaces became a general custom
about the tenth century A. D., and lasted until about 1957, when
FORTRAN abandoned the practice."

Bringing to mind the ancient example from BASIC...

FORK = 10 TOMATOES

What's interesting about that (to someone who wrote a BASIC interpreter
anyway!) is that in ye olde days the BASIC code was stored as the text
you type in, then parsed and intrepreted at RUN time.

So you have fun like that, and:

REMARKABLE PROGRAM

... STEPTOE

etc.

BASICs got faster when they started to do more syntax checking on entry
and tokenisation - which saved memory on the newer microprocessors and
reduced the run-time overhead. Then the LIST command is essentially a
de-tokenizer and as such the output then tends to be at the whim of the
programmer who wrote the interpreter.

But not all BASICs do this - some tokenize and preserve spaces - leading
to horrible program listings as the (BASIC) programmer tries to make
their program go faster by eliminating spaces, using short variable
names and so on. I'm sure that's one of the things that contributed to
the current dislike of BASIC.

Gordon

On 03/02/2015 22:39, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , Adam Funk
wrote:

On 2015-02-03, Tim Streater wrote:

And my tab chars are five, not eight spaces long.

Heretic!!!

My editor converts them to spaces anyway. That is the only sensible use
for a tab character.

So you press Tab and get five spaces (or up to five presumably if
in-between tab stops).

What happens if you press Delete or Backspace when positioned at either
end of one of those groups of five spaces; does it delete just one space
or all five?

How about navigating across such a group; does it need one Cursor Left
or Right, or five?

If your editor really does just convert to multiple spaces, then that
would drive me up the wall.

(FWIW my own editor keeps tabs as tabs but displays them as four spaces.
That can be varied to any tab spacing with a single key press. That's a
lot harder to do once tabs are converted to actual spaces.)

--
Bartc

On 28/01/2015 21:48, Ferretygubbins wrote:
I know this is OT but I rather suspect that some of you will be able to
help.

Boy1 (13) is interested in learning how to write code and so I would
like to set him up with a toolkit for his PC (Windows) unfortunately my
programming days are somewhat in the past and restricted to MUMPS which
was archaic even back then. Has anyone any suggestions for a suitable
platform? As ever the cheaper the better.

For a taste of real programming, ie. using text editors and producing
text output on a console, then perhaps Python is the best of a bad
bunch, at least to get started.

For things that might be more interesting to young people as graphics,
games, audio and networking, then it gets rapidly complicated. Then
maybe some hand-holding development system such as have been mentioned
can come in useful.

As for the Raspberry Pi, that's good for someone who intends to learn
how to battle Linux to get even the simplest thing done!

(That was my experience anyway: the first day was spent getting a
display that wasn't over-scanned, under-scanned, not too low a
resolution and not too high, something I hadn't needed to worry about
since the 80s. This involved taking out the SD card, and editing the
CONFIG.TXT file on a PC (ie. a real computer), before trying again with
a different bunch of numbers.)

--
Bartc