Re: programming language genealogy

[Hans Boldt <boldt@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Jon Paris wrote:
> Hans - I think you need to add the tabulators (19?? census) to your list for
> RPG.  There is a very direct line evolution from the Tabs to the language
> that was designed to emulate them.

The direct predecessor of RPG (I) was the plugboard for the 407 
accounting machine, which is arguably not a programming language.

(See <http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/407.html>)

> We should also add a "blip" at 2001 for /free which is every bit as much an
> evolutionary landmark  as "C with classes" was for C/C++.
> ... 

Please, no. RPG IV with free-form calcs an "evolutionary landmark"? 
I think it's rather embarrassing to call free-form syntax a landmark 
for a language considering it first occurred in the language in the 
21st century, at least 4 decades after the first programming 
languages with fully free-form syntax.

Cheers! Hans