Of all the languages I wrote in, I think SNOBOL was the most fun to write in, and LISP the least fun. Control Data assembler language
programming was probably the most precise, because you could crash the OS with a single mis-placed character, something I did more than once.
In a graduate-level course, we studied ALGOL-68, which had so many things in it that I'm not sure anybody ever actually implemented the full language. (But then again, has anybody implemented EVERYTHING in the SQL standard?)
COBOL has strange verbs like 'move corresponding' that could accomplish complicated tasks in a few lines but you have to be careful that you knew what you were asking for!
And I'd take the SQL standard over the CODASYL standard any time!
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Mike Nolan