User:Gerard Schildberger

From Rosetta Code

Gerard Schildberger can be reached at e-mail:     Gerard46@rrt.net

I learned that Gerard died on October 5th, 2021 Rest in Peace!

Sorry to hear of Gerard's passing. He was usually quick off the blocks in posting REXX solutions for new tasks so when he suddenly stopped posting I feared the worst. RIP. --PureFox (talk) 15:59, 24 May 2023 (UTC)


computer programming languages I know   ───   or think I know


Language Proficiency
ACP now decrepit
ALGOL 68 rusted shut
APL wrote two programs, but I can't read them
BASIC good
BASIC (and other flavors) so so
BPL (a PL/I subset) one of the authors
C middling
C# less then C
C++ even less then C#
COBOL ok   (I never let anybody know, lest I'd get roped into coding)
DOS batch so-so
Easytrieve meh
EXEC proficient
EXEC2 proficient
FARGO poor, but I figured I should learn it as I was living in Fargo
FOCUS poor
FORTRAN productive, those were the days
Fortran was good, now rusty
GML pretty good, wrote several CMS tomes in it
GPSS ok, but mostly forgotten
HPL (a PL/I subset) one of the early authors
HTML mostly, monkey see, monkey do
IBM assembler & macros (360) was proficient, now just good
IBM assembler & macros (370) was pretty good, now, not so much
IBM 407 plugboard good enough to get a job when 407s come back
IRAP interactive computation with plotting, author
Java poor, but dangerous (big gun, large feet)
JavaScript see the program below
JCL good
JOVIAL used it thrice
KEDIT macros very good
KEXX (REXX under KEDIT) proficient
Kingston FORTRAN II proficient
Lisp was so-so, but now, not so much
Modula-2 very rusty
MUMPS used in '69, forgot everything
NOMAD poor
PARS now decrepit
Pascal beginner
PL/I good to gooder
QBE defunct, but I liked the concept
REXX proficient
RPG less than ok
SAS ok
Script pretty good
Script/370 good
Script/VS good
Snobol was ok, but non-functional
SPS very good
SQL not so good anymore
Viatron FORTRAN IV was one of the authors at CUC
XEDIT macros very good


ACP and PARS   ─── I was part of the team that first implemented the Passenger Airline Reservation System (PARS) for a hotel/motel business   ─── a motel room is just a huge seat (chair) with a bed, alarm clock, TV (in color!), ice bucket, and a personal bathroom (with tub and shower) with soap, shampoo, and towels,   ···   but the room doesn't fly anywhere.


APL   ─── still bemuses me.       I once read in   The IBM Journal   on an article on APL that the article's author wrote a 2-line APL program that validated chess moves (except for queening and castling).   He said he could have condensed the 2-liner into a 1-liner,   but then it would be harder to read.
Funniest thing I ever read in an   The IBM Journal   article.


BPL   ─── (Basic Programming Language)   was a Honeywell   (co-developed with a Japanese company)   developed subset of the IBM PL/I language   (I was one of a dozen or so BPL programmers/authors at Honeywell).


HPL   ─── (Honeywell Programming Language)   was a subset of PL/I   (similar to above)   and was to be used for Honeywell's new computer   (code name unknown)   ───   it was never built, but from what I could glean from the specs, it would have used HPL as it's native [machine] language and seemed to have some of the characteristics of IBM's FS system   (and apparently, suffered the same fate).
FS = Future System.


IBM 407 plugboard   ─── can't be many of us plugboard programmers left.   I still have a tie-clip made from a small jumper plug.   I guess that makes me older than dinosaurs.   Plug boards make steampunk seem old.


Kingston FORTRAN II   ─── (locally called FORTRAN 2.5)   was for the IBM 1620 with a lot of FORTRAN IV capability.   It supported floating point arithmetic even if the (optional) hardware feature for floating point wasn't installed.


SPS (Symbolic Processing System)   ─── was the IBM 1620 assembler.


Viatron FORTRAN IV   ─── was the FORTRAN compiler for the Viatron home computer   (I was one of the CUC authors of the compiler and libraries;   CUC was the Computer Usage Company,   at that time,   the oldest software company in the USA)   and had it's fingers in writing some of the routines for IBM's TSS,   which enabled CUC to write the first non─IBM book on writing/coding assembler for the IBM/360.


I also update the   (English) Wikipedia page for   Rosetta Code   from time to time.




A JavaScript program to present a toggle switch (on a bar) for syntax highlighting on Rosetta Code:

This will allow you to turn on/off syntax highlighting for any computer programming language entry   (that uses a   <lang xxx>)   on a case by case basis.

The default is   off.

A wide solid bar   (64 characters)   is also presented to make the text   «toggle syntax highlighting»   part of the toggle bar appear at the right of your screen window.

This wide solid bar also makes each computer programming example more clearly separated (differentiated).


Clicking on the text within the     « »     (guillemet) characters toggles the syntax highlighting   on   and   off.


It also appears to render the (complete) Rosetta Code task page faster as it bypasses the syntax highlighting for all computer programming entries.

(function(){
  	    function get_code_pres() {
		                      var pres = document.getElementsByTagName('pre');
		                      var codes = [];
		                      for(var i=0;i<pres.length;i++)
                                             if(pres[i].className.match(/\bhighlighted_source\b/)) codes.push(pres[i]);
		                      return codes;
	                             }

 	    function toggle_highlight(pre) {
		                            if(pre._alt_html == null) {
		                	                               pre._alt_html = pre.innerHTML;
		                 	                               var spans = pre.getElementsByTagName('span');
		                 	                               for(var i=0;i<spans.length;i++) spans[i].className = '';
		                                                      }
                                                                 else {
                                                                       var z=pre.innerHTML;
			                                               pre.innerHTML=pre._alt_html;
			                                               pre._alt_html=z;
                                                                      }
	                                   }

 	    function show_toggle() {                                        // the bar below has  64  'db'x  characters.
                                    var xdb = '█████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████'; 
                                    var bar = xdb.concat(' «toggle syntax highlighting»');
		                    var codes = get_code_pres();
		                    for(var i=0;i<codes.length;i++) {
		                                                     var a=document.createElement('a');
		                                                     a.textContent  = bar;
 		                                                     a.style.cursor = 'pointer';
 		                                                        (function(e) {a.addEventListener('click', function() 
                                                                                           { toggle_highlight(e); 
                                                                                           }, false);
		                                                                      e.parentNode.insertBefore(a, e);
		    	                                                             }
                                                                         )   (codes[i]);
 	         	                                             toggle_highlight(codes[i]);
		                                                    }
	                           }
 	    show_toggle();
         }
) 
  ();

(I didn't write the above program,   but I modified the heck out of it.)


To update your preferences,   go to:

 Preferences                                               (tab  which is after your   userName   at the top right of the screen)
   Appearance                                              (tab)
     Skin                                                  (section) 
       Shared CSS/JavaScript for all skins:                (section)
          Custom JavaScript                                (tab)
             Edit                                          (tab)
               (paste the JavaScript program here)
                  Save page                                (tab)
                    (read the notes at the top of the page) 
                                                            
                                                            
                                                               
 Then go to some Rosetta Code task and view the results.
                                                            
 You may have to refresh the cache as per the notes.