I view the language issue along the same lines as the OS (or monitor, or ???) that exists on the various classic computers. With some notable exceptions, I tend not to run Unix on my classic HW but one of the original OS's that the HW was shipped with. The same goes for programming languages. I don't want to write everything in "C". In some cases C imposes too heavy a burden (MVS 3.8 J for example) and isn't in line with the "flavor" of the machine and/or OS. In the case of my Symbolics machines, even though there is a C compiler for it, my question is "why?". It's a LISP machine, you should write in LISP (after all even the OS is
written in LISP).

When I'm doing programming, I choose the language that's most appropriate. Not only based upon the problem at hand but the environment/machine it's intended to be used on. For example, for my MEM11 project, I'm using a uP that is designed to run Forth, so I'm writing everything in Forth (including the simulator). It turns out to be really efficient and low overhead. I can't imagine what it would take for a C-runtime to provide the environment
that I currently have with Forth.

TTFN - Guy

On 8/7/15 12:10 PM, Sean Caron wrote:
I suppose so ... in the process of building various little
single-board-computers based on historical microprocessors, I end up using
their corresponding assembly languages, some of which are probably no
longer really in commercial use.

Mostly on UNIX I just use C (or Perl, or ...) but on other platforms where
other languages are available, like on VMS, or on platforms where C (or
even Pascal) is _not_ available (say, MTS or MVS 3.8J on Hercules) I like
to play around with some of the older languages, that you might not see
used so much anymore ... Pascal, LISP, FORTRAN, PL/I, SNOBOL, of course
good ole BASIC ... whatever's available and I have some reference materials
for (I enjoy collecting good old EE/CS textbooks as well) ... mostly these
are little "toy" programs though, just to run the compilers through their
paces and see the OS run a few executables ... I'm not doing any real
development in FORTRAN or PL/I :O

Best,

Sean


On Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 12:18 PM, Eric Christopherson <
echristopher...@gmail.com> wrote:

Is there a subset of this group for people who like to program in
languages or language implementations or libraries that are no longer
in common mainstream use? Or other groups for such a thing?

--
         Eric Christopherson


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