| Ken,
If you're still interested in COMAL, and have 15 or 20 spare dollars,
the following book might be of interest:
The COMAL Handbook
By Len Lindsay
Reston Publishing Co
Reston, VA
The handbook is a reference work with few examples of code, but
the language is so similar to BASIC (and to a lesser degree, Pascal)
that only a listing of COMAL syntax is necessary.
Regarding syntax:
It is similar to BASIC in that it offers REAL, INTEGER and CHARACTER
types (represented much like BASIC even down to the '$' in string
variable names.) In addition, there is a pseudo BOOLEAN type.
It offers the usual "structured programming" constructs. (REPEAT...
UNTIL, WHILE, FOR...ENDFOR, CASE, IF..ELSE..ELIF..ENDIF, LOOP..EXIT..
ENDLOOP etc.)
It allows for procedure and function definitions complete with
parameter passing by reference and value.
COMAL is primarily found on micros, as far as I know. Mostly Commodore
and I believe there is an IBM-PC (gag!) version. It is an interpreted
language, mostly. That is, it behaves much like the interpreted
BASIC environment until you run the program. COMAL first takes
a pass through the code and resolves branches, it then interprets
the code normally. The advantage being that it doesn't have to
calculate addresses at run time. On the Commodore 64 (the only COMAL
I'm familiar with) COMAL runs noticably faster than an equivalent
BASIC program. I haven't heard of any COMAL compilers. I actually
don't really expect to see any show up. I also don't think anyone
will bother to implement it on a minicomputer. It just isn't that
earthshaking of a developement.
It is a pleasant alternative to BASIC, however, and I understand
that it is being used across the pond to teach programming to school
children. I prefer COMAL to BASIC (talk about damning with faint
praise :^) and can see a future for it in the microcomputer world
but I'm sure most people will ignore it.
Gary
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| I haven't checked this note for a couple months, surprised someone
replied. I read about it in "computer language", a magazine. I
think it was last years June issue. I got plenty of info from that.
(Sample programs, etc) Thanks for the handbook reference.
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