PL/I is a very old language but seemingly haven't got much publicity and appreciation as Fortran for scientific computing. Why is that? A search on the web does show that there are many PL/I codes for scientific computing. There is among others a scientific computing library which was developed by IBM in PL/I.
But I haven't found any free compilers for Windows for PL/I. Is it due to this lack of free compilers that PL/I didn't attract the scientific community?
Thanks a lot...
Why is that?
I think there is a couple of reasons.
Maybe because habit is second nature. When PL/I appeared FORTRAN had already existed for almost 10 years. When some new technology/language appears you can start to disparage existing code base by calling it legacy code. But there is no reason to start conversion immediately. Especially it was big problem in 70s due to the lack of automated converters and other tools.
The next reason might be that there is no silver bullet. PL/I was attempt to create such silver bullet - general purpose language. They tried their best, you know the rest. =) PL/I was monstrous language. Frow Wikipedia article:
Programmers were sharply divided into scientific programmers (who used Fortran) and business programmers (who used COBOL), with significant tension and even dislike between the groups. PL/I syntax borrowed from both COBOL and Fortran syntax. So instead of noticing features that would make their job easier, Fortran programmers of the time noticed COBOL syntax and had the opinion that it was a business language, while COBOL programmers noticed FORTRAN syntax and looked on it as a scientific language.
Also the "old folks" like FORTRAN evolve under danger of death and added features such as structured programming, object orientation, etc. That reduced PL/I's relative advantages.
P.S. Also take a look at that part of Wikipedia article already mentioned.