smryan@garth.UUCP (sous-realiste) (08/08/90)
>#I claim I have made a strong case against ALGOL being even a good programming >#language for mathematics. > >Because certain computers had hardware instructions that ALGOL could >not use, then ALGOL is not a good programming language for The 60 in Algol60 refers to 1960. Would you care to compare it to other languages of 1960? Fortran? Was there anything else but assembly? Algol58/60/61 was the first international effort to design a machine independent language. It has many least common denominator problems, and many inadequacies (no string variables at all), but it was also very innovative: - block scoping. - recursion. - (self) documenting: (procedure calls). - type checking of procedure parameters. - arrays had dynamic upper and lower bounds. - array parameters included the array bounds. - nestable procedures. - boolean type. - own vs local variables. - conditional expressions. - if-then-else statements. - for-:=-step-until-while-do loops. - free formatted source. - formal context-free syntax definition. - formalised parameter passing and procedure invocation rules. - separation of lexical and syntactic considerations. If you want a language to beat up on, try Algol68. It is of the same vintage as Fortran 66, Pascal, C, PL/I, Cobol 69, and was an attempt to fix the known shortcomings of Algol60. By the way, I believe Algol 60 is still in use. How many of you are still using Fortran II or its predecessors? -- Her somber eyes consider all ||/+\==/+\|| Steven Ryan that loom and tower, large and tall.||\=/++\=/|| ...!uunet!ingr!apd!smryan Her everyday is always new ||/=\++/=\||...!{apple|pyramid}!garth!smryan and fills her eyes of frail blue. ||\+/==\+/|| 2400 Geng Road, Palo Alto, CA
ergo@netcom.UUCP (Isaac Rabinovitch) (08/08/90)
In <656@garth.UUCP> smryan@garth.UUCP (sous-realiste) writes: >The 60 in Algol60 refers to 1960. Would you care to compare it to other >languages of 1960? Fortran? Was there anything else but assembly? LISP! -- ergo@netcom.uucp Isaac Rabinovitch atina!pyramid!apple!netcom!ergo Silicon Valley, CA uunet!mimsy!ames!claris!netcom!ergo "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know!" -- Ralph Waldo Emerson