A Collection of Readings on the Subject of Bliss-10

This document is a collection of papers, articles, and documentation concerning the BLISS-10 programming language, developed at Carnegie-Mellon University for the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-10.

The collection serves as supplemental information to the standard BLISS-10 Reference Manual, providing:

• Language Background: An introduction to the design philosophy, which emphasizes efficiency, system implementation, and a "goto-less" programming style.
• Design Rationale: Detailed discussions on specific language features, such as the justification for the "dot" operator (for memory referencing), the avoidance of the "GOTO" statement, and efficient data structure accessing.
• Practical Application: Examples of language use, including an I/O package and a queue management model.
• Support Software: Documentation and source listings for debugging aids (HELP) and timing statistics gathering tools (TIMER).

The document highlights the language's unique approach to data structure specification, which emphasizes the separation of data representation from algorithmic logic, and its focus on being a "systems implementation language" that minimizes run-time overhead.