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> Because PL/I was designed by IBM for their computers and operating systems, there were no concerns for portability, so the language definition included a larg

> Because PL/I was designed by IBM for their computers and operating systems, there were no concerns for portability, so the language definition included a large amount of features that are left unspecified in standards for languages like C/C++, because they are available only for certain operating systems or computers, so the standard must be restricted to specify only the minimum features that are available everywhere. Reading wiki I am not sure the assertion is right. In fact I am not sure even the first set of statements is right. It was involved a lot of others from beginning (from users in share/guide) to other universities and European standard committees.

adrian_b 5y ago
Almost all PL/I features have already been present in an internal technical report about NPL (New Programming Language) from December 1964, which was done by an IBM team, concurrently with the software design for the new IBM System/360 series of computers, for which PL/I was intended to be the main programming language. The design of the new language has taken into account the feedback from the users of FORTRAN IV and COBOL on the previous 7xxx series of IBM computers and it was also inspired by features from ALGOL 60, but otherwise there was no direct influence of outsiders on the language design. Around 1966, a few extra features were added to PL/I, the most important being pointers and unions, which were taken from the Hoare and McCarthy proposals for the successor of ALGOL 60. At that time IBM did not care yet if any of their programming languages will also be used on other computers. They were a hardware vendor, which offered as a bonus operating systems and programming languages with their computers, to convince the customers to buy the hardware. They were not selling software yet. Compatibility with other hardware was not at all desirable for IBM. Only the other smaller companies were interested in porting IBM languages like FORTRAN or PL/I to their computers, to make them an acceptable alternative to IBM hardware. So the standardization efforts were done in other places, but based on the de facto standards created by the IBM products.

adrian_b 5y ago

Almost all PL/I features have already been present in an internal technical report about NPL (New Programming Language) from December 1964, which was done by an IBM team, concurrently with the software design for the new IBM System/360 series of computers, for which PL/I was intended to be the main programming language. The design of the new language has taken into account the feedback from the users of FORTRAN IV and COBOL on the previous 7xxx series of IBM computers and it was also inspired by features from ALGOL 60, but otherwise there was no direct influence of outsiders on the language design. Around 1966, a few extra features were added to PL/I, the most important being pointers and unions, which were taken from the Hoare and McCarthy proposals for the successor of ALGOL 60. At that time IBM did not care yet if any of their programming languages will also be used on other computers. They were a hardware vendor, which offered as a bonus operating systems and programming languages with their computers, to convince the customers to buy the hardware. They were not selling software yet. Compatibility with other hardware was not at all desirable for IBM. Only the other smaller companies were interested in porting IBM languages like FORTRAN or PL/I to their computers, to make them an acceptable alternative to IBM hardware. So the standardization efforts were done in other places, but based on the de facto standards created by the IBM products.