[HN Gopher] Iron Spring PL/I Compiler
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       Iron Spring PL/I Compiler
        
       Author : bilegeek
       Score  : 26 points
       Date   : 2025-05-26 21:19 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.iron-spring.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.iron-spring.com)
        
       | pdw wrote:
       | According to their news page, they started development on OS/2...
       | in 2007... Amazing.
       | 
       | > 5 Nov, 2007: Iron Spring Software announces the availability of
       | the first alpha version of their new PL/I compiler. The alpha
       | runs on the OS/2 operating system only.
        
       | skissane wrote:
       | Interesting that it is available for OS/2 and not Windows.
       | 
       | If you are already supporting Linux and OS/2, it isn't much more
       | work to support Windows too-and will likely attract many more
       | users than OS/2 support will
       | 
       | The FAQ [0] says:
       | 
       | > Iron Spring PL/I is free for non-commercial and hobbyiest use.
       | The price of the commercial version has not yet been determined,
       | but will be approximately two orders of magnitude less than IBM's
       | compiler for Windows. Academic, Government, and Volume licenses
       | will be available. A CD will be available at additional cost.
       | 
       | I'm sceptical the commercial version is ever going to happen now.
       | This is a very small and shrinking market, 20 years ago selling
       | it would have been a tough gig but you might have had some
       | success, the same success today is going to be orders of
       | magnitude harder. If you had a time machine to take this product
       | back to the 1990s, it probably would have done much better,
       | though even there it would have been a decisively niche product.
       | 
       | > The compiler is currently closed-source.
       | 
       | I wonder why people do this - I get why you want to keep your
       | software closed source if you have realistic plans to
       | commercially exploit it - but if you don't, why not just let
       | people have the source code?
       | 
       | I've heard before stories about solo closed source developers who
       | suddenly and unexpectedly die, and they'd left the source code on
       | an encrypted disk, and even if their family gives some technical
       | friend permission to try to retrieve it, turns out to be
       | impossible because nobody knows the password. Open source, not an
       | issue.
       | 
       | [0] http://www.iron-spring.com/faq.html
        
         | Pet_Ant wrote:
         | > I've heard before stories about solo closed source developers
         | who suddenly and unexpectedly die, and they'd left the source
         | code on an encrypted disk, and even if their family gives some
         | technical friend permission to try to retrieve it, turns out to
         | be impossible because nobody knows the password. Open source,
         | not an issue.
         | 
         | I feel we need more code escrows for that reason. Keep it
         | commercial till you die, fine, but let it live on afterwards.
        
       | Koshkin wrote:
       | ./plic advent.pli        (ERR999)No valid statements in source
       | program
       | 
       | _(Goes back to reading an article about Common Lisp.)_
        
       | fortran77 wrote:
       | This was my first programming language. CS 101 was taught in
       | PL/I, on punch cards, when I went to college. We actually used a
       | Cornell dialect called "PL/C"
       | 
       | While it's called "Pee el one" it's rendered PL/I. So the title
       | is wrong; the article has it correct. Please fix it! See:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PL/I
        
         | bilegeek wrote:
         | > it's rendered PL/I
         | 
         | Fixed.
        
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       (page generated 2025-05-26 23:00 UTC)