SURGE: a recoding of the COBOL merchandise control algorithm
Leonard F. Longo · Communications of the ACM · 1962
t i o n M a n y among us feel t h a t |i;nglish-type languages are not necessarily the best solution to the proMem they try to solve.Some of these objections m a y |)e quoted from Ill]: ' : . . .c o m p u t e r m a r k e t e r s w o u l d have llS believe, it is u n n e c e s s a r y for the user' of a large scale c o m p u t e r , with its associated E n g l i s h ~angtlag(~ corn|filer, to l(~aVll a now l)rogramming l a n g u a g e --h e {the progralnmer) c a n write his p r o g r a m s in good old familiar English.[n facl,, l|te E n g l i s h ' u n d e r s t o o d ' by c o m p u t e r s is not lhe English spoken by you a n d m e ." " L o o k i n g at the m n l t c r of |angtt~tge front ihe point of view of the conlptltcr p r o g r a m l n e r , then, c o m p u t e r E n g l i s h fails o n two COllilts: it is di|licult to write precisely e n o u g h for c o m p r e h e n s i o n by the transL'ttor (compiler) program :tad it takes too lit|lob writing 1o express a simple eomlltalld.""~['|lc gl'C~tl l e n g t h of the SOlll'(.cp r o g r a m increases the probalfility of t r a a s c r i p t i o n error, while the r e q u i r e m e n l for precision m a k e s s u c h errors c o s t l y ..... . . .how has EDglish langu.agep r o g r a m m i n g ( c o m p u l e r E n g l i s h ) reached tim position of imporL-.:race it now occupies in p r o g r a m m i n g technology? . . . .Sad to say