Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!lll-winken!ames!ncar!ico!rcd
From: rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: First Recursive Language.
Summary: hard to go back that far
Message-ID: <1990Dec1.005406.6563@ico.isc.com>
Date: 1 Dec 90 00:54:06 GMT
References: <319@rangkom.MY>
Organization: Interactive Systems Corporation, Boulder, CO
Lines: 14

napi@rangkom.MY (Mohd Hanafiah b. Abdullah) writes:

> Does anyone know which language is the first to use recursions.

Where do we draw a line for "language"?  Certainly recursion is evident in
mathematics that far predates programming.  Would you consider Church's
thesis[*] as defining a language?  Some folks figure it as a direct
progenitor of LISP, and recursion certainly figures in heavily.

[*] _The_Calculi_of_Lambda_Conversion_, Alonzo Church.  (I think it's 1940,
Princeton)
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd       Boulder, CO   (303)449-2870
   ...Mr. Natural says, "Use the right tool for the job."


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