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grumbles · 09-23-2013, 08:02 PM

COBOL lives on and will continue to live where performance/reliability are paramount (i.e. banking & financial services). PL/1 was supposed to replace it (and FORTRAN) but no matter how hard IBM pushed it, it just never took off. There were never any good (widely available/cheap) versions for microcomputers. I know that Digital Research had a PL/1 compiler for CPM-86 (and maybe CPM-80, I don't remember) but it died with CPM.

I suppose that I should take a look at the source but I really don't like/have an interest in C++. While my first programming language was C (for the Z-80 in the late 70's) when I started programming for MS-DOS, I switched to Pascal and what little programming I do is now in FreePascal. If C is designed to give the programmer the freedom to shoot themselves in the foot, C++ loads the gun with magnum loads and full automatic as well.

While I use Sigil to put books together since it automagically creates the toc and opf files for me, I really, really, really dislike the text text editor. I normally use Notepad++ on Windows or SciTE everywhere. I wish the Sigil authors had used the Scintilla editor component instead of the monstrosity they did use. I find myself going to great lengths to avoid doing any editing with Sigil. All I use if for is to take some xhtml files, along with style sheets and perhaps some images and have them packaged up into an epub.

I keep thinking that I should get around to writing my program to package up a directory tree into an epub. It's more work than I really want to do but maybe it's time for me to think about it again. If I do it, I repeat IF, the I assure you that it will be written in Pascal and it will be a command line program (refer back to the C on a Z-80 in the late 70's). I'll run off in search of the source now.

09-23-2013, 08:02 PM	#98
grumbles Addict Posts: 238 Karma: 1500000 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Toronto Device: Pandigital Novel (Black), T-2 and 3, Nexus 7	COBOL lives on and will continue to live where performance/reliability are paramount (i.e. banking & financial services). PL/1 was supposed to replace it (and FORTRAN) but no matter how hard IBM pushed it, it just never took off. There were never any good (widely available/cheap) versions for microcomputers. I know that Digital Research had a PL/1 compiler for CPM-86 (and maybe CPM-80, I don't remember) but it died with CPM. I suppose that I should take a look at the source but I really don't like/have an interest in C++. While my first programming language was C (for the Z-80 in the late 70's) when I started programming for MS-DOS, I switched to Pascal and what little programming I do is now in FreePascal. If C is designed to give the programmer the freedom to shoot themselves in the foot, C++ loads the gun with magnum loads and full automatic as well. While I use Sigil to put books together since it automagically creates the toc and opf files for me, I really, really, really dislike the text text editor. I normally use Notepad++ on Windows or SciTE everywhere. I wish the Sigil authors had used the Scintilla editor component instead of the monstrosity they did use. I find myself going to great lengths to avoid doing any editing with Sigil. All I use if for is to take some xhtml files, along with style sheets and perhaps some images and have them packaged up into an epub. I keep thinking that I should get around to writing my program to package up a directory tree into an epub. It's more work than I really want to do but maybe it's time for me to think about it again. If I do it, I repeat IF, the I assure you that it will be written in Pascal and it will be a command line program (refer back to the C on a Z-80 in the late 70's). I'll run off in search of the source now.