< exclamation > There is a legend that Dennis Ritchie , inventor of C , once responded to demands for features resembling those of what at the time was a much more popular language by observing "If you want PL/I , you know where to find it." Ever since, this has been hackish standard form for fending off requests to alter a new design to mimic some older (and, by implication, inferior and baroque ) one. The case X = Pascal manifests semi-regularly on Usenet 's news:comp.lang.c newsgroup . Indeed, the case X = X has been reported in discussions of graphics software (see X Window System ).
[ Jargon File ]
(1995-10-25)