[J3] [EXTERNAL] Re: What is Jeopardy?

[Holcomb, Katherine A (kah3f)]

The correct answer, to my question at least, is "What is R?"  The original was S, presumably for "statistics".  The authors of that then tried to commercialize it as SPlus and S died out.  I think R has now pretty much killed SPlus.

I believe it could be distinguished since it's the letter _before_ the earlier language.  C came after B and D came after C.   So trick question as well as a somewhat obscure language.

I once knew a student who was a D enthusiast (he did not take a class from me).  And we recently installed some package written in D (using a static binary, fortunately) but that's all I've ever encountered it.  I have some interest in Swift and rather wish it would be opened so it could become a more general-purpose language rather than Apple specific.  I found its generics system particularly appealing.  If I had some motivation I'd also like to become more familiar with Julia.
-- 
Katherine Holcomb 
UVA Research Computing   https://www.rc.virginia.edu
kah3f at virginia.edu  434-982-5948

On 12/10/20, 5:02 PM, "J3 on behalf of Bill Long via J3" <j3-bounces at mailman.j3-fortran.org on behalf of j3 at mailman.j3-fortran.org> wrote:

    My preferred story:  “This programming language got its one-letter name from the grade received by its authors who submitted the language as their CS language design class project.”
    
    (Actually, the previous languages were named A and B, both failed. Third time was the charm:  C was the one that survived.)
    
    I did once look at D - it appears to be C with a lot of Fortran stuff layered on.
    
    Cheers,
    Bill
     
    
    > On Dec 10, 2020, at 3:40 PM, Holcomb, Katherine A (kah3f) via J3 <j3 at mailman.j3-fortran.org> wrote:
    > 
    > I've got an even better (probably much more obscure) question.  "This specialty programming language got its one-letter name because it started as a clone of another language whose name was the letter _after_ it in the alphabet."
    > 
    > Katherine Holcomb 
    > UVA Research Computing   https://www.rc.virginia.edu
    > kah3f at virginia.edu  434-982-5948
    > 
    > On 12/10/20, 4:31 PM, "Steven G. Kargl" <kargl at uw.edu> wrote:
    > 
    >    On Thu, Dec 10, 2020 at 08:02:52PM +0000, Holcomb, Katherine A (kah3f) via J3 wrote:
    >> 
    >> Looks like they snubbed C++ also.
    >> 
    > 
    >    C++ was covered in the answer for 'C'.  I don't remember
    >    the exact answer that Trebek gave, but to paraphrase
    > 
    >    "Bjarne Stroustrup add ++ to this one letter language to
    >    create a new language".
    > 
    >    "What is C?"
    > 
    >    -- 
    >    Steve
    > 
    > 
    
    Bill Long                                                                       longb at hpe.com
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