Conference turris::languages

43.0. "Ambiguous langauge example :-)" by REX::MINOW () Mon Nov 05 1984 10:55

In case you are still wondering which language to choose for your
projects, perhaps the following could help.  (From USENET)
 
>	From: [email protected] (Sjoerd Mullender)
>	Newsgroups: net.lang.c
>	Subject: Is it C or is it Pascal?
>	Message-ID: <[email protected]>
 
    While we are on the subject of Ambigous programs
I might add that a humorous (Paul Gootherts & I thought)
article entitled "Common Programming Language Ambiguity"
was published in SIGPLAN February 1981 (?) by
James W Davis, and Paul D Gootherts.
 
    It is easy to show that -- given either a Pascal
compiler that ignores material after end., or a C or
Pascal compiler that ignores unterminated comments --
any collection consisting of a FORTRAN program, a Pascal
Program, and a C program can be combined into one source
file that will compile correctly in each language.
The programs must satisfy some restrictions (e.g. no
pascal or C identifiers >75 chars in length,
no strings containing another language's close comment
symbol, the rest left to the interested reader).
 
Below I enclose Sjoerd Mullender & Robbert van Renesse's
program made 4 lingual in the style of the article in SIGPLAN.
Note: the first two lines are not in error, they are indented
to column 73.
 
									(* main(
									))(){/*
C       Note that we are now in comment mode in Pascal, C, and FORTRAN
C	If we wish, we may insert any FORTRAN here ( e.g.
	DO 10 I=1,0
	    WRITE(6,6)
6	FORMAT (42HTHIS WAS COMPILED BY A FORTRAN 66 COMPILER    )
	STOP
10	CONTINUE
	WRITE(6,7)
7	FORMAT (42HTHIS WAS COMPILED BY A FORTRAN 77 COMPILER    )
	STOP
	END
C *)	(* Note that we may place Pascal source here *)
C *)	program main(output);						 (*
C *)	begin								 (*
C *)	writeln('A Pascal compiler compiled me')			 (*
C *)	end.								 (*
C */	/* Note that we may place C source here */			 /*
C */	printf("A C compiler compiled me\n");				 /*
C */	return (int ( * )()) 0;						 /*
C */	}
 
 
-- 
					 Jim Davis (James W Davis)
				{any_of_the_biggies} !hplabs!davis
					  davis%hp-labs@csnet-relay
 

SIMULA-67 on DECsystem 10's & 20's allowed for one file to
contain both the SIMULA header and the MACRO-10
implementation of a routine. The SIMULA header was used to
create the attribute file, so that the compiler could make
sure the routine was called correctly by other (seperately
compiled) SIMULA code. 

Andy V