Transcript of discussant's remarks

FORTRAN III was designed by Irv Ziiler. It provided the ability to intermix FORTRAN statements and machine instructions with FORTRAN variables as addresses. It also introduced a number of features such as Boolean expressions and string handling facilities that later appeared in FORTRAN IV. In fact, most of the facilities of FORTRAN IV are to be found in FORTRAN III. It was mostly an internal IBM system and was first used in the winter of 1958-1959. So, in closing, let me remark that there seems to be general agreement among the original FORTRAN group that it was one of the most enjoyable projects any of us ever worked on. We were graced by this wonderful independent status that Cuthbert Hurd and my subsequent bosses conferred on us, so that we were completely on our own. We knew we were going to provide a valuable tool, even if few others did, and we worked quite hard. But perhaps the best part was the uncertainty and exci tement of waiting to see what kinds of object code all that work was finally going to produce. I only wish that programming today could be half as exciting and enjoyable as the FORTRAN project was. Thank you.