A simply constructable user-oriented computer language using fortran

Abstract

One important task of the industrial engineer is to be an interface person—between operations and planning, between workers and their physical environment, between bench level tasks and systems level management, and with growing need, between the computer and the user. The latter has been caused in part by the programming requirement to express how a task is to be done, rather than what is to be done. The IEs role here is to provide the interface to ask the “what” questions. This paper addresses one strategy for constructing the computer-user interface. Using a core set of sixteen short FORTRAN subprograms, a simple procedure for constructing user oriented conversational computer languages has been developed (seven subprograms are directed at the conversational language and nine are list handling routines). This core set has been used successfully to develop user packages for medical doctors doing cell kinetics simulation in cancer research, for energy policy makers to access and manipulate time series energy data, for undergraduates to solve statistical and mathematical programming problems. The procedure is machine independent, only requiring a FORTRAN compiler, and can be used by the IE to bridge the gap between the user with a question, and the solution power of the computer.