Where should the type information be 117

Nick Maclaren

Some further comments, that may be out of date as google is not showing recent articles. The PL-I article makes it clear that the dope vector terminology was used in the earlier user manual, so that terminology was in use by early 1968 plus 1. An IBM-UK description of PL-I using its dope vector terminology appeared in 1970

An IBM report of 1980 appears to use the IFFLE? meaning

A 1981 report on image processing by Srihari uses the array descriptor meaning

The 1968 plus 1 indirect description of a "dope vector" (in terms of procedures accessing it) appears to be using if for array descriptors for an Algol system

The BLISS description may indeed be of IFFLE(?) vectors

A 1982 article on stack machines appears to be using the terminology for IFFLE vectors

A early planned implementation of Ada (1980) uses the same terminology for array descriptors

A 1978 descrtion of the MU5 (British) appears to use dope vector for array descriptors

FWIW the earliest on-line reference I could find to dope vector is that of PL-I manual which implies that the term was used for desctiptor before early 1968 plus 1, the earliest description compatible with IFFLE vector semantics is 1971. These dates probably say more about the limitations of google than about the true origins of the terminology.