Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!amdahl!pyramid!weitek!amdcad!light!bvs
From: bvs@light.uucp (Bakul Shah)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Algol 60 vs Algol 68 (was "stack machines (Burroughs)")
Message-ID: <1988Jun11.200757.12285@light.uucp>
Date: 12 Jun 88 03:07:54 GMT
References: <1521@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <1532@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <476@pcrat.UUCP> <2868@louie.udel.EDU> <370@dlscg1.UUCP> <3147@polyslo.UUCP> <10064@tekecs.TEK.COM>
Reply-To: bvs@light.UUCP (Bakul Shah)
Followup-To: comp.lang.misc
Organization: Light Systems, Mountain View, CA
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Xref: utzoo comp.arch:5112 comp.lang.misc:1657

In article <10064@tekecs.TEK.COM> Andrew Klossner writes:
> ...
>There really isn't any "beyond" to Algol 68 since the 1975 Revised
>Report.  It's a dead language.  And that's too bad; while its model of
>computation is distant from that of real machines (making it an
>inappropriate language for most low level systems programming), it does
>an admirable job in its stated domain of algorithmic description, and
>is great for applications programming.

Actually Algol 68's model quite closely matches real machines and
the language can be compiled to generate code as efficient as
compiled C; though I doubt there are any modern, optimizing
compilers for it.  The language is verbose and the its syntax
rather od (!) but it can be used quite effectively for systems
programming.  I recall the CAP operating system (for the Cambridge
CAP computer) was written in Algol 68.

I wonder how much of C design was influenced by Algol 68 as most
of K&R C seems to map almost directly to Algol 68 and where C
differs is usually where the compiler's job is simplified.  Come
to think of it, a major subset of Algol 68 with a new and concise
syntax (sort of like C's) can make a very elegant, type safe and
well rounded language.

-- Bakul Shah <..!{sun,pyramid,ucbvax}!amdcad!light!bvs>