Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ccicpg!nick
From: nick@ccicpg.UUCP (Nick Crossley)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Algol-68 down for the count (was: Why have FORTRAN 8x at all?)
Summary: There were other sites
Message-ID: <41111@ccicpg.UUCP>
Date: 22 Nov 88 01:10:42 GMT
References: <388@ubbpc.UUCP> <16187@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <599@quintus.UUCP> <591@tuck.nott-cs.UUCP> <404@ubbpc.UUCP>
Reply-To: nick@ccicpg.UUCP (Nick Crossley)
Organization: CCI CPG, Irvine CA
Lines: 62

In article <404@ubbpc.UUCP> wgh@ubbpc.UUCP (William G. Hutchison) writes:
>> [ Andy Walker rebutted that his institution, Nottingham U, UK, used ]
>> [ Algol68 A WHOLE LOT, and they liked it A WHOLE LOT ]
>
> Andy, I now know of 2 (two) institutions that ever tried to use Algol-68 at
>all seriously, yours, and Math. Centrum in Amsterdam.

Add at least two more to your limited knowledge: the Royal Radar Establishment
and Cambridge University, UK.

RRE produced a compiler for the ICL 1900 machines; their system is described
in "ALGOL68-R Users Guide", by PM Woodward and SG Bond, HMSO 1974, ISBN
0-11-771600-6.  A version of this was also ported to the later 2900 range.

At Cambridge University, we had a compiler for Algol68C (Algol68 with some
extensions) which was heavily used.  Most (all?) of the operating system for
the CAP machine was written in Algol68C.  This project is described in the
book "The Cambridge CAP Computer and its Operating System", by MV Wilkes and
RM Needham, North-Holland 1979, ISBN 0-444-00357-6.  I quote from the preface:
"The choice of a programming language for an operating system is a crucial one.
... As a system programming language Algol68C has proved a distinct success." 
The book gives several example modules from the CAP OS.

The Algol68C compiler was also sent to several other Universities.

> I submit that the reason an utterly negligible fraction of the computer
>owners in the world use Algol-68 is that the language design was inherently
>flawed, and it is my interpretation that these flaws stemmed from the
>committee-design process (primarily).

Algol68 is one of the very few languages whose design is inherently sound.
It has one of the most regular and predictable syntaxes of any of todays
languages.  The lack of more widespread use is probably due more to possible
difficulties of complete implementation, and because it was never adopted
by some commercial hardware/software vendor.

> The primary "benefit" that I see in your institutions' choice of Algol-68 is
>that you write programs that nobody else can use, and that your students have
>to do extra work learning mainstream languages after they graduate.
> That sounds like a bad decision on the part of Nottingham U.
>-- 
>Bill Hutchison, DP Consultant	rutgers!liberty!burdvax!ubbpc!wgh
>Unisys UNIX Portation Center	"What one fool can do, another can!"
>P.O. Box 500, M.S. B121		Ancient Simian Proverb, quoted by
>Blue Bell, PA 19424		Sylvanus P. Thompson, in _Calculus Made Easy_

This is rubbish.  Programs written is Algol68 can be extremely readable -
MUCH more so than C.  Learning Algol68 would give students a clearer idea
of data structures than many other languages, I believe.  And how many serious
programmers know only one language?  A knowledge of several languages helps
students understand the principles behind them more easily; Algol68 should
be included in this set as it makes many of those principles very clear.

Furthermore, in these days when software reliability is so important, I
would maintain that few languages have the potential for reliability that
Algol68 has.

-- 

<<< standard disclaimers >>>
Nick Crossley, CCI, 9801 Muirlands, Irvine, CA 92718-2521, USA
Tel. (714) 458-7282,  uucp: ...!uunet!ccicpg!nick