from the July 1985 issue of Unix World magazine

by David Spencer

Current third-generation languages such as C and FORTRAN will have to move aside at some point for a new family of fourth-generation languages.

At 30 years old, FORTRAN is graying at the temples; third-generation programming languages are in their heyday. So you are probably wondering how we will speak to computers during the next decade. If current projections hold true, computers will seem (and talk) more like us fairly soon. In order for that to happen, however, current third-generation computer languages (such as C and fortran) will have to move aside for a new family of fourth-generation languages.

by Judy Getts

from the June 1987 issue of Computer Language

Chuck Duff is the kind of man you’d expect to run into early in the morning in a university coffee shop, styrofoam cup in hand, talking Hegel with a student.

You’d expect to see him in an art gallery rambling between the neoclassicists and linear chromatists, keen-eyed and at home, or even face-to-face in a folk-jazz cafe if you motioned the waitress aside and asked who is the James Beard behind the watercress crepes.

By Dan Azulay

from the January 1984 issue of Electronic Fun with Comouters and Games magazine

How this powerful language stacks up

Those of you who have been driven to desperate acts because you’ve mastered BASIC and feel there is nothing left in life, take heart There’s always FORTH, a very fast, very efficient computer language that is rapidly becoming the language of professional programmers and game designers.

If you’re planning to go to computer camp this summer you may be surprised to learn that in addition to honing your BASIC skills to a fine edge you might be presented with a language you’ve scarcely heard of—FORTH. All the Atari computer camps teach FORTH and many others do as well. One new computer—the Jupiter Ace— even has built-in FORTH Instead of BASIC.

from the June 1985 issue of Computer Language magazine

By Craig LaGrow

He calls himself a programmer at heart. But as an accomplished science fiction writer, president of a successful software company, technical book author, musician, and runner, P.J. Plauger is certainly a man of many talents.

His friends and work associates know him as Bill — a name he was affectionately given by his older sister three days after his birth. But in any published, professional work, he prefers to use the initials of his real name, Phillip James.

by Bill Tuthill

from the January 1985 issue of Unix Review magazine

C is descended from B, which was descended from BCPL. BCPL (Basic Combined Programming Language) was developed in 1967 by Martin Richards. B was an interpretive language written in 1970 by Ken Thompson (1) after he abandoned a Fortran implementation for the PDP-7.

BCPL and B were typeless languages, which may account for the type permissiveness of C. They restricted their scope to machine words and were rather low level. However, they provided structured programming constructs similar to those in Algol. BCPL, B, and C all provide pointers and address arithmetic. All three pass function parameters by value, rather than by address, but permit passing by address if desired.

from the April 1986 issue of PCM

By Richard A. White

An important question these days is what is BASIC’s place in the world of microcomputing? Over the past few years the IBM PC and its compatibles have arrived, followed by a vast outpouring of software of every description. Each machine comes with a BASIC language interpreter on its DOS disk.

It is likely that only a small percentage of these interpreters have been loaded for the purpose of doing programming. A much larger percentage have been loaded for the purpose of running some existing BASIC program. This only reflects that early microcomputer owners were as interested in the machines themselves as they were in running applications, while more recent purchasers are buying machines to run applications only.

by Harvey Newquist III

from the July 1987 issue of Computer Language

Artificial intelligence is perhaps the most overused—and abused—buzzword in the current age of computer science. The AI arena has been divided into several factions, all of which help distort its real benefits and potentials.

On the one hand we have the popular business media, which has billed AI as everything from the greatest creation since sliced bread to a worthless endeavor perpetuated by computer hucksters.