What's your favorite implementation of PL/I? Your favorite PL/I features that you miss in currently popular languages? Did you ever try PL/M?
Re:COBOL: A 1959 Idea and 2022 Technology
by BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 on Saturday March 05, 2022 @02:20PM
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It's been a couple decades since I had a need for PL/I. Mostly I used Assembler for working with the operating system and channel programming.
PL/M last I looked was not allowed outside IBM development labs, but I see a bunch of stuff coded in PL/M. My impression is that it's basically a bunch of macros wrapped around Assembler instructions in a common quest to eliminate branch instructions.
But remember that every IF and loop is implemented with branches under the covers.
My other involvement was teaching SQL to COBOL students.
FORTRAN shares with COBOL the mantle of the first compiler languages. As pioneers, they were stunted.
I remain a fan of PL/I for applications. It learned from the limitations of the early languages, but too many managements wanted to keep things stupid simple.
Mind you, PL/I would happily allow you to program in inefficient ways with serious performance costs.
You require knowledge of the code the compiler produces and which parts of the subroutine library are best avoided before you can promulgate standards for production applications.
FORTRAN shares with COBO