Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!gatech!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!mcsun!ukc!warwick!nott-cs!piaggio!anw From: anw@maths.nott.ac.uk (Dr A. N. Walker) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Algol68 Message-ID: <1991Mar20.192635.9532@maths.nott.ac.uk> Date: 20 Mar 91 19:26:35 GMT References: <3787@bruce.cs.monash.OZ.AU> <1991Mar8.202516.10401@praxis.co.uk> <1991Mar11.123405.17814@bellcore.bellcore.com> <9168@castle.ed.ac.uk> Reply-To: anw@maths.nott.ac.uk (Dr A. N. Walker) Organization: Maths Dept., Nott'm Univ., UK. Lines: 60 In article 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