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Re: [ontolog-forum] The history computing volume 6

To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2011 18:51:38 -0500
Message-id: <4D5F060A.6090700@xxxxxxxxxxx>
On 2/18/2011 2:35 PM, Ed Barkmeyer wrote:
> Bear in mind that Fortran 57 had a conditional expression of the
> if...then...else variety, but in a cruder form taken directly from the
> thinking of the IBM 701/704  instruction set:
>    IF (numeric expression) positive-destination, zero-destination,
> negative-destination
> but it was all based on goto's and statement labels.    (01)

Yes.  That was the form that McCarthy found awkward in FLPL
(Fortran List Processing Language).    (02)

>  Algol 58 had only:
>    if (logical expression) statement
> but<statement>  could be begin<statement>* end
> It seems likely that McCarthy's contribution was "else".    (03)

Yes.    (04)

For more about the similarity between LISP and Java,
please look the reference that Simon Spero found:    (05)

SS
> "We were after the C++ programmers. We managed to drag a lot of them about 
>halfway to Lisp."
> - Guy Steele, co-author of the Java spec (quoted in: 
>http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html )    (06)

I highly recommend that article.    (07)

John    (08)

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