Language for Systems Development

Well-designed efficient systems programming languages are an absolute necessity if programmers are to keep pace with the demand for systems. This paper presents briefly some criteria to be applied to the design of a general purpose systems programming language and a description of the Language for Systems Development that is being implemented at Brown University for the IBM S/360. The paper is a revised and condensed version of a much larger survey paper [3]. The research and writing of this paper and the design of LSD were partially supported by a National Science Foundation grant (No. GJ-181) and by Brown University. We would like to acknowledge the help and invaluable suggestions given us by Richard Wexelblat of Bell Laboratories, Robert Balzer of the RAND Corporation, John Brackett and Douglas Ross of Softech, Inc., and Robert Rosin of the State University of New York at Buffalo. Special thanks should be given to Paul Knueven of Digital Equipment Corporation who helped initiate the entire effort and has been a source of help and encouragement through many iterations. The authors would also like to thank Frank Tompa of the University of Toronto and Diane Shecter who were among the original designers of LSD.