From: Eric S. Raymond Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 09:25:25 +0000 (+0000) Subject: More appreciation. X-Git-Tag: 1.0~143 X-Git-Url: http://thyrsus.com/gitweb/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=4361d10a6e5d94dc4dd582efaa05d87897923354;p=mad.git More appreciation. --- diff --git a/doc/mad-manual.xml b/doc/mad-manual.xml index f03218a..743e591 100644 --- a/doc/mad-manual.xml +++ b/doc/mad-manual.xml @@ -79,6 +79,23 @@ yet done in non-assembler languages. The fact that the if statement is called WHENEVER and the goto called TRANSFER is a mere cosmetic trivium by comparison. +The expository style of the manual conveys as clearly as do the +language features that at this date the infant discipline of computer +science had yet to separate itself from applied mathematics. All +the impedimenta of mathematical notation are present not just in the +formulas, but in the language syntax descriptions where script letters +are used as metavariables. The whole is written in the rather clotted +prose one finds in mathematical papers. + +Certain phrasings in the manual suggest that the authors +thought of flowcharts as the primary notation for programs, and +considered MAD code a sort of hand-compiled derivative of it. This +made sense at the time; programming notations were clumsy and +primitive, and the typical complexity of programs was very low. +By five years later (roughly three or four Moore's-Law doublings) +flowcharting was going out of fashion, probably for the simple +reasin that flowcharts were getting too large to draw and read! + There are some significant respects in which MAD was actually rather advanced for its period. The multiline WHENEVER statement anticipated the free-format syntax of ALGOL 60 and its descendants, @@ -93,6 +110,7 @@ similar (though less powerful). This entire family of languages became extinct in the 1970s, snuffed out like dinosaurs by the meteoritic impact of time-shared computing and teletypewriter-like interactive terminals. + How This Implementation Differs From The Original MAD