[daip] What does POPS stand for?

[Eric Greisen]

Jared Crossley writes:

 > I've been trying to answer this question, out of simple curiosity,  
 > but have had no success.  What does POPS stand for?  Also, is POPS  
 > related to the POP2 language?  If not, where did it come from?
 > 
 > My search has intensified my curiosity.

POPS = People-Oriented Parsing System

Developed at NRAO Charlottesville to prove to the (our) FORTH people
that one could construct a language in Fortran and in normal order
rather than reverse polish.  (Of course, reverse Polish also works in
POPS.)  It was developed by Jerry Hudson and then first used in a
useful package by Tom Cram.  We enhanced POPS a great deal (arrays,
strings, min-match, grammar errors allowed suchas missing = sign, etc)
for AIPS.

Eric Greisen