Ha, I just thought about that. There are several things to say about that:

- of course Rexx on z/VM and z/OS can be seen as the interpreter version of PL/I
- I always found that PL/I received some shabby treatment, I like it more than 
COBOL for instance
- its early advertising emphasised heavily that your people did not need to 
learn assembler anymore, but they could still do everything possible on the 
platform. This is true.
- Multics was nearly 100% PL/I - how great it was can be experienced now 
through its hardware simulator of the DP8S. The Unix people mainly lied about 
it, but I understand why. I see a parallel here.
- its syntax is more palatable than the others in the Algol 60 tradition. With 
the remark that both the creators of Java and Javascript were forced by there 
bosses to adopt C++ syntax instead of what they wanted

The great thing about the current era is that you can enjoy all of these, 
whenever you want. Also, APL source has been donated by IBM and runs on VM/370. 
Like PL1 F. 
I am happy for the people who enjoy Python. And its incompatible OO versions 
that need to be run in OS jails because otherwise they mess up your OS image.

Best regards,

René.


> On 19 Dec 2021, at 09:54, Paul Gilmartin 
> <0000000433f07816-dmarc-requ...@listserv.ua.edu> wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 19 Dec 2021 09:40:50 -0400, René Jansen  wrote:
> 
>> My impression is that this sudden ‘article’ is linked to this ‘modernise the 
>> mainframe’ effort.  ...
>> 
> Is it still true that "PL/I is the only language you'll ever need!"?
> 
> -- gil
> 
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