Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mstan!amull
From: amull@Morgan.COM (Andrew P. Mullhaupt)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: He's not the only one at it again!
Summary: Umm - a bit revanchiste here, Jim
Message-ID: <1288@s8.Morgan.COM>
Date: 27 Jul 90 04:38:11 GMT
References: <25630@cs.yale.edu> <58091@lanl.gov>
Organization: Morgan Stanley & Co. NY, NY
Lines: 39

In article <58091@lanl.gov>, jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:
> In fact, only two features, that I can find, are original to ALGOL and
> have a continuing positive influence on language design: if-then-else
> and while(). 

Recursion? Recursive data structures? Required data declarations? 
Scope and re-usable variable names? 

I guess you have prior art for these? There aren't many candidates
for beating ALGOL to the punch. 

One of the most important aspects of ALGOL is the grammar on which
is was based. Context free grammars have since been almost universal
for high level languages, excepting FORTRAN, Lisp, APL, and other
elderly relics. The simplicity which the context free grammar brings
to the language cannot be underestimated; it is both simple for the
programmer and for the compiler writer at the same time. 

Don't get me wrong; I use FORTRAN nearly every day and nothing else
I have access to would replace it. But I am glad that ALGOL has had
so much more influence on language design. Actually, FORTRAN serves
as a very powerful negative influence on language design - everyone
since FORTRAN has been wise enough to avoid a label based flow of 
control, and default typed variables are definitely out of style.
The list of deprecated features in FORTRAN (Equivalence, anyone?)
is long enough to uniquely qualify FORTRAN as the language whose
superb compilers succeed in the face of a wretched language design.
A quick glance at the FORTRAN 90 definition will tell you that the
development of FORTRAN is now playing catch-up with where the ALGOL
derivatives have gone years before.

Later,
Andrew Mullhaupt

P.S. I'm not sure, but I've only known of one or two high level
languages which I would call first rate, and neither one has
achieved really widespread use. I'm beginning to think that there
is some kind of conspiracy at work, but it's probably just mass
stupidity - er - I mean economics.