tom@LOGICON.ARPA@caip.RUTGERS.EDU (01/28/86)
From: tom@LOGICON.ARPA >Message-Id: <8601251809.AA03712@caip.rutgers.edu> >From: 3comvax!mykes@caip.rutgers.edu (Mike Schwartz) >Subject: Re: What's BCPL? > >BCPL stands for the "Before 'C' Programming Language", and was developed >for the PDP-11 many years ago by the folks who brought us UNIX (Ken Thompson, >et al). I believe you can read more in The 'C' Programming Language. Wow!! A 10 on the Bogometer (also known as the B.S. detector)!! BCPL has nothing to do with 'C' other than the fact that: 'B' was "sort of" derived from BCPL and 'C' *was* derived from 'B'. BCPL was in use long before 'C' was a gleam in Thompson's eye. BCPL was first described (we believe) by Martin Richards in AFIPS SJCC #34, 1969, pp. 557-566. BCPL was also one of the first structured programming languages, predating ALGOL. BCPL was used for programming on the CTSS (Compatible Time-Sharing System) and for some early Multics programming, until PL/1 became predominant. BCPL has always had a larger following in the U.K. than in the U.S. (Which may explain why TRIPOS was written in BCPL.) (We also have a Modula compiler written by Univ of York, written in BCPL for UNIX.) Tom Perrine {tom@logicon} Bill D'Camp {bill@logicon}
GZT.TDF%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU@caip.RUTGERS.EDU (01/29/86)
From: "David D. Story" <FTD%MIT-OZ@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU> Predating Algol !?! - TILT, BOGUS, FARSE Algol's revised report is dated 1960 - That's 9 years before your BCPL - which was nothing but a hack cause of the problems in writing a full PL/1. Compiler technigues were not that well known and not published back then. These go back to the days when people were trying to patent algorithms ! not just bithc about copywriting programs.
steven@boring.uucp (Steven Pemberton) (01/30/86)
In article <1098@caip.RUTGERS.EDU> daemon@caip.UUCP writes: > >BCPL stands for the "Before 'C' Programming Language", and was developed > >for the PDP-11 many years ago by the folks who brought us UNIX (Ken Thompson, > >et al). I believe you can read more in The 'C' Programming Language. > > Wow!! A 10 on the Bogometer (also known as the B.S. detector)!! BCPL > has nothing to do with 'C' other than the fact that: 'B' was "sort of" > derived from BCPL and 'C' *was* derived from 'B'. BCPL was in use long > before 'C' was a gleam in Thompson's eye. > > BCPL was first described (we believe) by Martin Richards in AFIPS SJCC > #34, 1969, pp. 557-566. BCPL was also one of the first structured > programming languages, predating ALGOL. Well, at least a 5 on the Bogometer for that. Algol dates from at least May 1958, when it was still called IAL (International Algorithmic Language) though the first meetings on the language date from about a year earlier. "Algol is sometimes considered to have fathered a number of variants such as [...], CPL, [...]" R.W. Bemer, A Polico-social History of Algol, in Halpern and Shaw, Annual Review in Automatic Programming, Vol 5, Pergamon Press, 1969. Steven Pemberton, CWI, Amsterdam; steven@mcvax.uucp.
aglew@ccvaxa.UUCP (02/01/86)
Algol-60 was defined about 1957.
wagner@utcs.uucp (Michael Wagner) (02/03/86)
OK, folks, those of us who didn't know before now know that BCPL is a language, we know what it stands for, and we all have exercised our prejudices on whether it pre- or post-dates Algol, and whether Ritchie was a hero or a villian. Can we go on to something else, please? Michael