Re: [OT] Chinese Syntax

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From: ozbear (ozbear_at_bigpond.com)
Date: 05/31/04 

Date: Mon, 31 May 2004 09:50:29 GMT

On 29 May 2004 19:35:09 -0700, redfloyd11@yahoo.com (red floyd) wrote:

>Dan.Pop@cern.ch (Dan Pop) wrote in message news:<c956k1$p2m$4@sunnews.cern.ch>...
>> In <bu1cb0ltl9jqhs7pgpjeht4dh6jd4qbsac@4ax.com> Alan Balmer <albalmer@att.net> writes:
>
>> None of the programming languages assigning semantics to indentation
>> has ever become mainstream. There must be a reason...
>
>Not true. You're living in the present. In the past, when punch card
>input was the norm, indentation had a meaning. In particular, FORTRAN
>IV required input to begin in column 7 (or was it 8?), with a '*' in
>column 6(7) as continuation...
>
>DISCLAIMER: It's been nigh onto 25 years since I've done FORTRAN IV.
>My info on the specific columns may be incorrect.

Column 6 was for the continuation. Your code had to fit in columns
7 through 72. 73 through 80 was for a card sequence number, and
ignored by the compiler, IIRC.

Cobol also (originally) used column-positional syntax, Area A,
Area B, and so on.

Columns 1 through 6 (or 7) was for sequence numbers, followed by
Area A for paragraph names, and Area B for code, but its been a long
time.

At any rate, Dan is incorrect.

Oz 

-- 
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