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You know this is Multics we are talking about here :-) I must be one of the few on hn who has actually programmed in Pl/1 on a system (Prime 750's) that used

You know this is Multics we are talking about here :-) I must be one of the few on hn who has actually programmed in Pl/1 on a system (Prime 750's) that used it as its systems programming language. It is a Dream Language it just F&%ing works

mika9090 7y ago
I worked in PL/1 for 4 years. Saying it is just "F&%ing works" made me laugh hard! The compilation never failed because the compiler assumed what you really wanted. I got many bizarre programs.
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  Must have had an odd code base then - I found it nice to work with. And in my experience Primes pl1/g Compiler did properly assume what a sane developer would want - well there was that one time I had to recompile the entire Pl1 part of our MR system and push it out to all 17 systems :-)
- lucas_membrane 7y ago
  That was typical of PL/C and the silly IBM timesharing language based on PL/1, not so much of PL/1 itself.
jes 7y ago
Similar for me. Enjoyed a couple of years in college working in PL/1 on an Amdahl 470V/7. Good times!
ralphc 7y ago
If it was a dream language, why do you think it died out, and why did COBOL become dominant and survives to this day?
- wrycoder 7y ago
  I used it in the early '70s. A principal problem was that the language was so extensive ("kitchen sink") that some programmers could be using features that others were simply unaware of and which conflicted during integration.
prirun 7y ago
I put a Prime minicomputer emulator online that has both PL/I-G and full PL/I. It's configured as a Prime 9950, a successor to the Prime 750. Count me as one of the few who has written production PL/I software for a Prime! telnet em.prirun.com 8002 for the subset G compiler telnet em.prirun.com 8005 for the full PL/I compiler Emacs is also installed on the first machine running rev 20 Primos, but not quite on the second running rev 23 Primos because I didn't have all the pieces. Enjoy!

mika9090 7y ago

I worked in PL/1 for 4 years. Saying it is just "F&%ing works" made me laugh hard! The compilation never failed because the compiler assumed what you really wanted. I got many bizarre programs.

C1sc0cat 7y ago
Must have had an odd code base then - I found it nice to work with. And in my experience Primes pl1/g Compiler did properly assume what a sane developer would want - well there was that one time I had to recompile the entire Pl1 part of our MR system and push it out to all 17 systems :-)
lucas_membrane 7y ago
That was typical of PL/C and the silly IBM timesharing language based on PL/1, not so much of PL/1 itself.

jes 7y ago

Similar for me. Enjoyed a couple of years in college working in PL/1 on an Amdahl 470V/7. Good times!

ralphc 7y ago

If it was a dream language, why do you think it died out, and why did COBOL become dominant and survives to this day?

wrycoder 7y ago
I used it in the early '70s. A principal problem was that the language was so extensive ("kitchen sink") that some programmers could be using features that others were simply unaware of and which conflicted during integration.

prirun 7y ago

I put a Prime minicomputer emulator online that has both PL/I-G and full PL/I. It's configured as a Prime 9950, a successor to the Prime 750. Count me as one of the few who has written production PL/I software for a Prime! telnet em.prirun.com 8002 for the subset G compiler telnet em.prirun.com 8005 for the full PL/I compiler Emacs is also installed on the first machine running rev 20 Primos, but not quite on the second running rev 23 Primos because I didn't have all the pieces. Enjoy!