Today I Learned (TIL)

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TIL about 'B', the programming language (en.m.wikipedia.org)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by otter@lemmy.ca to c/til@lemmy.ca

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B is a programming language developed at Bell Labs circa 1969 by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie.

Influenced by BCPL, PL/I, TMG

Influenced C

B was designed for recursive, non-numeric, machine-independent applications, such as system and language software. It was a typeless language, with the only data type being the underlying machine's natural memory word format, whatever that might be. Depending on the context, the word was treated either as an integer or a memory address.

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[–] abbadon420@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The memory word size is the amount of bites your CPU can hold and proces in a single cycle. The word size of a modern computer is usually 64 bit.

[–] Jeeve65@ttrpg.network 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

There was no question in the post. I'm pretty sure that poster knows what "word size" is in this context.

[–] abbadon420@lemm.ee -2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

There was a (sort of) question

whatever that might be

[–] aard@kyu.de 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

the "whatever that might be" in that context meant "the machine dependent format could be anything, and it wouldn't matter for B"

[–] abbadon420@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago

Ah oke