🚀 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,

	Yes, by orthogonal extension of a small number of concepts.

>	      and is thus rather difficult to read and learn.

	Significantly easier than Pascal or C (speaking from many
years of teaching students these languages), and I expect easier than
Modula-N, Ada, name-your-favourite-more-modern-language-but-I-haven't-
yet-tried-to-teach-it-to-our-first-year-students-so-can't-prove-it.

>							      Tony
>Hoare

	... who is a distinguished computer scientist with a bee in
his bonnet about Algol ...

>      wrote about "The Emperor`s New Clothes" a while back, in which
>he politely explains why less is better. 

	Just so.  The syntax charts for Algol fit neatly onto one side
of A4, if you except formats;  how much smaller do you want it?

>Sure, it has some nice stuff (like "own" variables),

	*Not* like own variables.

>						      but look at
>the definition - what is it, 5 cm thick? 

	No, about 2.5, of which about half is (quite large-scale)
programming examples, and about half the rest is explanatory comments.
How big do you expect a *very* *careful* definition of a language to
be?  What did you want the authors to leave out?  You are not expected
to learn Algol from the Report (though many of us did), any more than
you are expected to learn C from the Standard.  You read K&R or an
elementary primer for C;  modesty forbids a recommendation for Algol.

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

	Well, virtually every program written in this Department from
1972 for about a decade was written in it.  There were many thousands
of programming exercises, of course, but also timetable programs,
exam software, text-processing software, compilers, neural-net simulators,
graph packages, numerical analysis packages, music programs, you name
it, we did it.  A series of conference proceedings of the period show
many other major applications.  How many do you want?

	We still maintain and run some of these packages, though we
probably won't after this year.  I still use Algol for new programs
from time to time, which I hope answers the other question as to
whether there are still any users.

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