KDF9 DPS(ID:5894/kdf002)KDF9 data processing systemdata processing language Hardware:
References: Aims What do we want from these Automatic Programming Languages? This is a more difficult question to answer than appears on the surface as more than one participant in the recent Conference of this title made clear. Two aims are paramount: to make the writing of computer programs easier and to bring about compatibility of use between the computers themselves. Towards the close of the Proceedings one speaker ventured that we were nowhere near achieving the second nor, indeed, if COBOL were to be extended any further, to achieving the first. These aims can be amplified. Easier writing of programs implies that they will be written in less, perhaps in much less, time, that people unskilled in the use of machine language will still be able to write programs for computers after a minimum of training, that programs will be written in a language more easily read and followed, even by those completely unversed in the computer art, such as business administrators, that even the skilled in this field will be relieved of the tedium of writing involved machine language programs, time-consuming and prone to error as this process is. Compatibility of use will permit a ready exchange of programs and applications between installations and even of programmers themselves (if this is an advantage!), for the preparation of programs will tend to be more standardised as well as simplified. Ultimately, to be complete, this compatibility implies one universal language which can be implemented for all digital computers. Extract: COBOL replacing KDF9 DPS COBOL at Kidsgrove The Conference heard also of the 6 months' operating experience of COBOL in the English Electric Service Bureau at Kidsgrove. A compiler of 60,000 instructions was ready for use on the KDP 10 in October 1961 (this machine is the English version of the RCA 501 in the USA, the computer upon which COBOL was first used). The compiler has made a feature of dealing with this difficulty of debugging the object program: the system operates in two sections: first the compiler accepts the source program, finds its mistakes and prints out a list of errors in the COBOL itself; then, secondly, after two or three other such machine runs it produces the final object program and, in addition, an edited copy of the source program. The whole procedure is well documented, the computer giving good print outs of both source and object programs. English Electric have found that COBOL can be learned in three days although two weeks is a more suitable time. Program writing time was reduced by a ratio of 4 : 1 and other side benefits accrued also from the use of COBOL: operating and running procedures become generally simpler with some exceptions (e.g. there is no provision for sorting in COBOL 60) and it comes into its own on file processing problems. There are also options to allow people to put in their own sections, e.g. in this country such a section might be sterling conversion. Nevertheless, it is still true that the best machine-coded program is better than the best COBOL-coded program. English Electric maintain that COBOL is easy to learn, but it is also still true that the better the programmer the better the program. in The Computer Bulletin September 1962 view details in The Computer Bulletin September 1962 view details |