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In article <1992Oct29.163702.9849@texhrc.uucp> pyeatt@Texaco.com
(Larry D. Pyeatt) writes:

[about Pascal and C:]
>I would not say that they are Algol 68 downgrades,

	"Downgrade" is perhaps too strong a word.  But they are both
missing a lot of features of Algol:  dynamic arrays, complex numbers,
storage management, parallel processing and user-defined operators
are the first few that come to mind.  Oh, and identity declarations,
visible "empty" statements, better loops, procedure denotations, and
lots more when I think a bit harder.  Neither offers that much by way
of compensation -- Pascal sets and C pointer arithmetic, but what else?

>						    but I would agree that
>they are much smaller languages than Algol 68.

	Much smaller by what metric?  Less featureful, as above, certainly,
but the Algol *syntax* is actually smaller than that of either Pascal or C
[provided that you express it in comparable detail], typical programs have
smaller parse trees and fewer lexemes for comparable tasks, and so on.
Having taught all three languages for many years both to experienced
programmers and to beginners, I also have no doubt which is the simplest
to learn [and it isn't Pascal or C!].

>						 I would also say that
>Pascal is closer to Algol in many respects than C is.

	Well, yes;  but C is closer to Algol than Pascal in more respects.

-- 
Andy Walker, Maths Dept., Nott'm Univ., UK.
anw@maths.nott.ac.uk