Consequences of a compiler defect

& (verbiage overflow) ⋅ ⋅ Fri 02 September 2011 ⋅ RSS ⋅ Search ⋅ Subscribe

Anthony Hoare writes:

The first American space probe to Venus [was] reportedly lost because FORTRAN cannot recognize a missing comma in a DO statement. In FORTRAN the statement

DO 17 I = 110

looks to the compiler like an assignment to a (probably undeclared) variable

DO17I = 110.

C. A. R. Hoare, "Hints On Programming Language Design," (Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Memo AIM-224, STAN-CS-73-403, December, 1973), p. 14. http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~necula/cs263/handouts/hoarehints.pdf

This must have been Mariner 1, although most other accounts mention a missing hyphen or other symbol in mathematics, not code.

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