perl qstn...

[Randal L. Schwartz]

>>>>> "Matthew" == Matthew Seaman <m.seaman at infracaninophile.co.uk> writes:

Matthew> As far as I know, perl and its descendant ruby are the only
Matthew> programming languages that let you put the condition test after
Matthew> the action, despite this being exceeding familiar in human
Matthew> languages.

Except, we old-timers remember that Larry Wall directly lifted this from
RSTS-E BASIC-PLUS, which he had used at Pacific University as a student.
Having hacked BASIC-PLUS myself around the same time, I recognized it
instantly.

BASIC-PLUS went further though, allowing them to be nested.  So you'd
end up with monstrosities like:

PRINT a
  IF a % 3 = 2
    FOR a = b TO b+7
      FOR b = 0 TO 90 STEP 10;

Thankfully, Larry limited Perl's statement modifiers to precisely one
level. :)

Just another old geezer,

-- 
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
<merlyn at stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
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