tomr@ashtate (Tom Rombouts) (01/11/91)
In article <3561@bruce.cs.monash.OZ.AU> lloyd@bruce.cs.monash.OZ.AU (lloyd allison) writes: >re the variety of languages. > >I have been attempting to compile an A-Z (not a census) >of programming languages for some time. I, too, have started a list of languages! (Now we can have our own flame wars like those regarding the various "jargon" files :-) ) Many of the most obscure ones I got from the 1969 edtion of Sammet's "Programming Languages: History and Fundamentals" which includes a list in the back of c. 130, with many more mentioned in bibliographical references. My personal rules are: 1. The language must have been "published" (but not neccesarily implemented) 2. I personally _do_ include all variants, such as ALGOL-58, ALGOL-60, etc, but _not_ brand names such as "Watcom C," "Microsoft C," etc. 3. For now, I am not including assemblers since almost every CPU has an assembler(s) and that would tend to bloat the list with colorless names. Note also that coming up with some sort of precise total is _not_ a goal, since that will only lead to endless "What is a programming language?" debates. Eventually, I would like to create an alphabetical list with a explanation of the name, a one or two sentence description (including specific creators, if applicable), the year it first appeared, and some sort of official reference book or article on the language. (I am aware that some of these items are subject to [lengthy] debate....) I will add some more new ones to the list and post it as a single "paragraph" of language names seperated by commas to this group sometime next week. I am guessing there will be about 300. As someone e-mailed me, an article in CACM in 1966 (Vol 9, #3) suggested that back _then_ 700 languages had already been created! To paraphrase Ray Bradbury (?), "The Nine Billion Names for Languages" might apply to this project! :-) Tom Rombouts Torrance 'Tater tomr@ashtate.A-T.com V:(213)538-7108