User:Gerard Schildberger: Difference between revisions
Acknowledgment.
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Gerard Schildberger can be reached at e-mail: ''Gerard46@rrt.net'' <br><br>
'''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. --[[User:PureFox|PureFox]] ([[User talk:PureFox|talk]]) 15:59, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
{{mylangbegin|<br><br> <big><big> computer programming languages I know ─── or think I know </big></big> <br><br><br>}}
{{mylang|ACP|now decrepit}}
{{mylang|ALGOL 68|rusted shut}}
{{mylang|APL|wrote two programs, but I can't read
{{mylang|BASIC|good}}
{{mylang|BASIC (and other flavors)|so so}}
{{mylang|BPL (a PL/I subset)|one of the authors}}
{{mylang|C|middling}}
{{mylang|C sharp|less then C|C#}}
{{mylang|C++|even less then C#}}
{{mylang|COBOL|ok (I never let anybody know, lest I'd get roped into coding)}}
{{mylang|DOS batch|so-so}}
{{mylang|Easytrieve|meh}}
{{mylang|EXEC|proficient}}
{{mylang|EXEC2|proficient}}
{{mylang|FARGO|poor, but I figured I should learn it as I was living in Fargo}}
{{mylang|FOCUS|poor}}
{{mylang|FORTRAN|productive, those were the days}}
{{mylang|Fortran|was good, now rusty}}
{{mylang|GML|
{{mylang|GPSS|ok, but mostly forgotten}}
{{mylang|HPL (a PL/I subset)|
{{mylang|
{{mylang|IBM assembler & macros (360)|was proficient, now just good}}
{{mylang|IBM assembler & macros (370)|was pretty good, now, not so much}}
{{mylang|IBM 407 plugboard|good enough to get a job when 407s come back}}
{{mylang|IRAP|interactive computation with plotting, author}}
{{mylang|Java|poor, but dangerous (big gun, large feet)}}
{{mylang|JavaScript|see the program below}}
{{mylang|JCL|good}}
{{mylang|JOVIAL|used it thrice}}
{{mylang|
{{mylang|KEXX (REXX under KEDIT)|proficient}}
{{mylang|Kingston FORTRAN II|proficient}}
{{mylang|Lisp|was so-so, but now, not so much}}
{{mylang|Modula-2|very rusty}}
{{mylang|MUMPS|used in '69, forgot everything}}
{{mylang|NOMAD|poor}}
{{mylang|PARS|now decrepit}}
{{mylang|Pascal|beginner}}
{{mylang|PL/I|good to gooder}}
{{mylang|QBE|defunct, but I liked the concept}}
{{mylang|REXX|proficient}}
{{mylang|RPG|less than ok}}
{{mylang|SAS|ok}}
{{mylang|Script|pretty good}}
{{mylang|Script/370|good}}
{{mylang|Script/VS|good}}
{{mylang|Snobol|was ok, but non-functional}}
{{mylang|SPS|very good}}
{{mylang|SQL|not so good anymore}}
{{mylang|Viatron FORTRAN IV|was one of the authors at CUC}}
{{mylang|XEDIT macros|very good}}
{{mylangend}}
<big> ACP and PARS </big> ─── 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. <br><br><br>
<big> APL </big> ─── 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.
<br>Funniest thing I ever read in an ''The IBM Journal'' article. <br><br><br>
<big> BPL </big> ─── (<u>B</u>asic <u>P</u>rogramming <u>L</u>anguage) 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). <br><br><br>
<big> HPL </big> ─── (<u>H</u>oneywell <u>P</u>rogramming <u>L</u>anguage) 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). <br>'''FS''' = '''F'''uture '''S'''ystem. <br><br><br>
<big> IBM 407 plugboard </big> ─── 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. <br><br><br>
<big> Kingston FORTRAN II </big> ─── (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. <br><br><br>
<big> SPS (Symbolic Processing System) </big> ─── was the IBM 1620 assembler. <br><br><br>
<big> Viatron FORTRAN IV </big> ─── 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. <br><br><br>
I also update the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Code <u> (English) Wikipedia page for <big>''Rosetta Code''</big></u>] from time to time.
<br><br><br>
-----
<big><big><big>A JavaScript program to present a toggle switch (on a bar) for syntax highlighting on Rosetta Code:</big></big></big>
This will allow you to turn on/off syntax highlighting for any computer programming language entry (that uses a <b><big><nowiki><lang xxx></nowiki></big></b>) on a case by case basis.
The default is '''off'''.
A wide solid bar (64 characters) is also presented to make the text <big><big>«toggle syntax highlighting»</big></big> 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 <big><big>« »</big></big> (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.
<pre>
(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();
}
)
();
</pre>
<small> (I didn't write the above program, but I modified the heck out of it.) </small>
<big><big><big>To update your preferences, go to: </big></big></big>
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.
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