Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!nott-cs!anw
From: anw@nott-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Algol-68 down for the count
Message-ID: <596@tuck.nott-cs.UUCP>
Date: 30 Nov 88 16:32:01 GMT
References: <388@ubbpc.UUCP> <16187@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <599@quintus.UUCP> <5495@mva.cs.liv.ac.uk> <408@ubbpc.UUCP>
Reply-To: anw@maths.nott.ac.uk (Dr A. N. Walker)
Organization: Department of Mathematics, The University, NOTTINGHAM, NG7 2RD, UK.
Lines: 52

In article <408@ubbpc.UUCP> wgh@ubbpc.UUCP (William G. Hutchison) writes:
>
>Consider the following criteria for success:
>
> If Algol-68 had been a success, it would be used on more than 1/10 percent of
>the computers in the world.

	By this criterion, Cobol certainly fails, Fortran probably fails.
Oh, you meant *real* computers?

> If Algol-68 had been a success, it would be used in every developed nation,

	It's been *seriously* used, to my knowledge, in the USA, Canada,
UK, France, Germany, Czechoslovakia, USSR, Netherlands, Belgium, and a few
others.  Don't know of any use in Luxembourg.  Where else were you thinking
of?

> If Algol-68 had been a success, Wirth would not have invented Pascal and
>Modula-2.

	Wirth is a law unto himself.  If P had been a success, he presumably
shouldn't have invented M2.  If M2 had been a success, he wouldn't have
invented Oberon.  If Wirth had understood A68, the world might have been
different in many ways.

> If Algol-68 had been a success, [ a few more silly ones ]
>
> Algol-68 fails every of these criteria for success, therefor it is a failure.
>                                   QED.

	Whether or not the conclusion is true, it "therefor" doesn't follow
from this argument.

> You may blame lazy compiler writers or the Evil Empire (IBM) for the failure
>of Algol-68, but I submit that the root problem was that the Algol-68 committee
>could not or would not produce a human-readable spec for the language.

	But this is ridiculous.  (a) The A68 spec (the Revised Report, I
assume you mean) is perfectly readable, and has been read and understood
by many, many people.  Anyone capable of writing a compiler for any
language whatsoever should have no problems with the RR.  (b) Many other
languages have specs of equal or greater difficulty, or (worse) no spec
at all.  I haven't seen the new C standard, but if it is *significantly*
"easier" than the RR, the committee simply won't have done its job.
(c) Users learn from textbooks, not from "specs".  (d) The A68 group
*did* commission a user-friendly description (Lindsey & vd Meulen:
"Informal Introduction to Algol 68", already mentioned several times in
this group).

-- 
Andy Walker, Maths Dept., Nott'm Univ., UK.
anw@maths.nott.ac.uk