[Coco] Ran across an interesting book today...

[KnudsenMJ at aol.com]

In a message dated 4/7/06 5:51:47 PM Eastern Daylight Time,  
boisy at boisypitre.com writes:

>Snobol!   I had to write an Algol 60 parser in Snobol 4  for my  
>Programming Languages class last semester.  Talk  about fun!

SNOBOL4 was a terrific language to write parsers in.  I did my PhD  thesis on 
an interactive (text mode) language for describing computer systems to  a 
growing database.  I could be very free in the language design, since I  was 
parsing it in Snobol.
 
It's a real shame this language was allowed to die out.  The modern  
replacements like Perl just aren't quite as good to use for parsing, though they  have 
other great features.

>In  Compiler Construction this semester, the project is to write a   
>compiler that uses a subset of the ADA programming language and   
>generate intermediate code.  That part is mostly working, and I  am  
>looking forward to writing a back end which will take the  i-code and  
>turn it into good ole' 6809  assembler.


Back in 1988 it would ahve been good to say "there's an ADA compiler for  the 
Coco."  Not that anyone would use it, but it would have made a nice  brag.  
At least Microware had C and Pascal, and ISTR hearing of a  Fortran.  Or maybe 
that was OSK.
--Mike K.