🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <YV6O4AC@math.fu-berlin.de>, dww@math.fu-berlin.de (Debora Weber-Wulff) writes:
> Why is Algol 68 not being used? Well, it seems to have every feature
> ever needed, and is thus rather difficult to read and learn.

The "minority report" slammed Algol 68 because it LACKED features.
It hasn't got [Ada=>generics, C++=>templates] or inheritance or
modules/packages/classes, it hasn't got bignums or rationals, ...

> Sure, it has some nice stuff (like "own" variables), but look at
> the definition - what is it, 5 cm thick? 

Gee, what a *well*-informed critique.  Algol 68 has no "own" variables.
My copy of the definition is more like 0.5cm thick.  It would take 5 or
6 copies of the Algol 68 report to make up the weight of the Ada LRM,
and the "Interpretations" of the Ada LRM come to as much again.
The Algol 68 report is roughly 1/4 of the size of the "Annotated C++
Reference Manual", which is by comparison hopelessly vague.  Heck,
the Algol 68 report is physically less than half the size of the
Fortran 77 standard.

Basically, the problem with the Algol 68 definition is that the
committee tried to give a *rigorous* definition of what is basically
a rather simple language (if you exclude formatted transput).
People *think* Pascal is simple because the Pascal report didn't
tell the whole truth.  (Of the INRIA formal specification of Ada
it could well be said "Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair".)

> All the same, I'd like to hear about "real" software (as opposed
> to programming exercises) that have been programmed in it.

Why do you think the Royal Radar Establishment went to the trouble
of writing their own Algol 68 compiler?
-- 
Seen from an MVS perspective, UNIX and MS-DOS are hard to tell apart.