63 lines
2.1 KiB
Plaintext
63 lines
2.1 KiB
Plaintext
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ANNOUNCING!
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V A L G O L
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From its modest beginnings in Southern California's San Fernando
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Valley - a long recognized hotbed of intellectual creativity - comes
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the latest of modern programming languages - VALGOL. VALGOL is en-
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joying a dramatic surge of popularity across the industry, for good
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reason. User-friendly command structure and syntax abound.
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VALGOL commands include the powerful:
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REALLY,
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LIKE,
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WELL, and
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YOUKNOW.
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VALGOL variables are assigned values using the intuitively
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appealing operators
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=LIKE, and,
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=TOTALLY.
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Special "Californian Booleans", FERSURE and NOWAY, make VALGOL
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a joy to read.
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Structuremingorthe andHEMcts
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A tantalizing sample of VALGOL illustrates the significant
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advance this language offers over such traditional fare as FORTRAN
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and COBOL.
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LIKE YOUKNOW (I_MEAN) START
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if PIZZA =LIKE BITCHEN and
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B =LIKE TUBULAR and
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C =LIKE GRODY
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then
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FOR I =LIKE 1 to OH MAYBE 100
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DO WAH + DITTY to TOTHEMAX
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BARF(I) =TOTALLY GROSS(OUT)
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SURE
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LIKE BAG THIS PROBLEM
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REALLY
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LIKE TOTALLY YOUKNOW.
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Sadly, one VALGOL shortcoming is its somewhat unfriendly
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reporting of syntax errors. Reminiscent of C and early assembly
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language compilers, errors are reported but must be tracked down by
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the programmer. For example, the above program will cause the
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VALGOL interpreter to generate:
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GAG ME WITH A SPOON
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A cursory examination of the code quickly reveals our obvious
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error - the commands LIKE and BAG are incorrectly paired. LIKE may
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only be used in con-junction with REALLY (or TOTALLY as in the last
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line, of course, only if followed by the qualifier YOUKNOW).
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We have been assured that the final release version of VALGOL
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will incorporate a more helpful error reporting system. With this
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shortcoming bagged we can imagine serious APL and FORTRAN programmers
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will soon find their existing languages less challenging and certainly
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less easily read and understood.
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