Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!rutgers!bellcore!faline!thumper!ulysses!andante!alice!dmr
From: dmr@alice.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: C and Algol 68
Message-ID: <7997@alice.UUCP>
Date: 18 Jun 88 09:23:34 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill NJ
Lines: 13

Practically everything ok@quintus cites as proving that C does not
descend from Algol 68 is true, yet there was influence, much of
it so subtle that it is hard to recover even when I think hard.
In particular, the union type (a late addition to C) does owe to A68,
not in any details, but in the idea of having such a type at all.
More deeply, the type structure in general and even, in some strange
way, the declaration syntax (the type-constructor part) was inspired by A68.
And yes, of course, "long".

Mostly, of course, C is Thompsonized BCPL (that is, B) with types.
You don't have to look too hard to find PL/1 and Fortran, either.

	Dennis Ritchie