On Tuesday, 96/08/13, Bill Brown wrote to David Noon about "PL/I for
OS/2" as follows:

BB> How's it differ from the 360/370 version? :-)  I won't be 
BB> in the market for the OS/2 version in the near future, 
BB> maybe eventually. Would I enjoy it other than just a trip 
BB> down memory lane?

Hi Bill,

The OS/2 compiler has the full SAA language. It has many extensions
over the old OS Optimizer; a comparison with F-Level would be
nonsensical.

It has formal type definitions, instead of just kludging with LIKE. It
allows enumerations. It has even more options fo DO-loops (UPTHRU and
DOWNTHRU as semantically different alternatives to TO ... BY ...). It
permits type-associated pointers, as well as free-standing pointers.

On the arithmetical side, it allows unsigned binary fixed point
variables. There are a number of new built-in functions for floating
point operations that had to be fudged using UNSPEC() in the old days.
It also supports hardware implementations of higher mathematical
functions on machines that have them.

It now supports object class definitions, but IBM has not yet
documented the statements. Peter Elderon simply mentioned on
Compuserve something like "We've implemented full OOP in the new
release" and left it at that. Just a minor re-architecting of the
language.

The list of new features to an already rich language is very long.

BB>  DN> The punched cards I used for source are getting a little tatty
BB>  DN> though. ... :-)
BB> 
BB> I've still got a couple of trays lying around somewhere 
BB> probably.  I'd much rather drop a floppy!

How do you put the dropped floppies through a pocket sorter? ... :-)

Regards

Dave


 * KWQ/2 1.2i * Bug-free, cheap, or on time -- pick two.
--- Maximus/2 3.01