IMHO, the lack of acceptance of ALGOL 68 had nothing to do with the language itself. The general public thinks of Mathematics in terms of extreme formality and indecipherable prose, but the reality is much different. Mathematical texts are ladden with explanatory prose, and I view ALGOL 68 through Mathematics colored glasses.
The defining document is the equivalent to a 20,000 line program without a single comment. It introduces a lot of terms involved in describing its grammar without explaining their roles and why they are named what they are. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of René Jansen [rene.vincent.jan...@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2023 4:01 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: Stop the ragging on COBOL please [was: RE: ASM call by value] It is very probable that he only liked ALGOL 58 and ALGOL 60, for which he (and Jaap Zonneveld) made the first compiler (for the Electrologica X1), in an old school building in a small street, the Boerhaavestraat in Amsterdam, which I can see from my window across the river right now. The building does not have any marking, which is a bit of a shame. We know what happened with ALGOL 68, and see also Edsger’s opinion on the document describing it: https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cs.utexas.edu%2Fusers%2FEWD%2Ftranscriptions%2FEWD02xx%2FEWD230.html&data=05%7C01%7Csmetz3%40gmu.edu%7C274c6488bc9d4dd4b8ce08db2f62ba66%7C9e857255df574c47a0c00546460380cb%7C0%7C0%7C638155873317274253%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=I8uDwNmppE9wKncU2LOeEoEJG%2BlOu%2BoSE6DoRnwwyhQ%3D&reserved=0 best regards, René. > On 28 Mar 2023, at 07:26, Tony Harminc <t...@harminc.net> wrote: > > On Mon, 27 Mar 2023 at 23:22, David Crayford <dcrayf...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> I think it was flippant Edsger W. Dijkstra quote: >> >> “The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, >> therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.” > > Dijkstra wasn't hot on a lot of languages: > > "If Fortran has been called an infantile disorder, PL/I must be > classified as a fatal disease." > -Edsger Dijkstra in Introduction to the Art of Computer Programming > > Which prompted, or at least provided a juicy quote for, Ric Holt's > 1972 paper "Teaching the Fatal Disease (or) Introductory Computer > Programming Using PL/I". > >> I use programming languages that I don't like all the time. C, in >> particular, I dislike a lot. That doesn't mean they're not useful. > > Whew! And I thought you were a C fanatic. Thanks for disabusing me of that. > > Tony H. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
