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texdr.aft
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I like computing history, with an emphasis on the history of programming languages. My display name is a reference to Donald Knuth's early memo about TeX.

My favorite programming languages are Common Lisp, C (via CWEB), and (mainly in theory) Algol 68. The perfect language, in my opinion, would be a blend of these three.

Outside of computing, I am interested in music theory and philology.

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  • Texas, USA
  • Member for 9 months
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33 What was the first programming language to support “operator chaining”? Jun 23
29 Did COBOL have an English-like “or” operator? Jun 24
22 When did the IBM 650 have a “Table lookup on Equal” instruction? Dec 20 '20
16 Why does Pascal have numeric labels? Jul 11
15 When was the phrase “sufficiently smart compiler” first used? Jan 14
13 How did the Burroughs B5000/B5500 provide hardware support for implementing Algol's call-by-name? May 15
12 Are there any primary sources for the “passing constant by reference” behavior in old Fortran compilers? May 23
11 What was the first programming language, other than Lisp, to have “short-circuiting” Boolean expressions? Jun 28
11 What was the first programming system to place no limitations on the length of identifiers? Jun 9
11 Is it true that “do … done” blocks in Bash do not end with “od” because od existed before Bash/Bourne? Jun 23
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