Xref: utzoo comp.lang.misc:7051 comp.arch:21642 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!crdgw1!uunet!mcrware!jejones From: jejones@mcrware.UUCP (James Jones) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc,comp.arch Subject: Re: Algol68 Message-ID: <5591@mcrware.UUCP> Date: 25 Mar 91 15:21:47 GMT References: <3787@bruce.cs.monash.OZ.AU> <9168@castle.ed.ac.uk> <1991Mar22.013748.4944@ico.isc.com> Reply-To: jejones@mcrware.UUCP (James Jones) Organization: Microware Systems Corp., Des Moines, Iowa Lines: 16 In article <1991Mar22.013748.4944@ico.isc.com> rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes: >That might be true, in a very real sense and for a very good reason: It >was too hard to figure it out! There was no K&R or Jensen&Wirth for it. >There was the _Informal_Introduction_..., which was a wonderful book (in >spite of the table of contents, which was a clumsy nuisance), but it didn't >really answer serious questions or lay down the law. Well...I wish I remembered who it was that pointed out in SIGPLAN Notices some time back that the easy-to-read standards (Pascal given as case in point, but nowadays the same can be said of C) were also full of holes, and that attempts to make them rigorous also made them much longer and less legible. (Said person also made the same point being made in the original posting, that a straightforward standard, even if leaky, encourages implementors.) James Jones