Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!njin!princeton!udel!burdvax!ubbpc!wgh From: wgh@ubbpc.UUCP (William G. Hutchison) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: What makes a language successful? (Was: Algol-68 down for the count) Summary: more criteria for success! Message-ID: <413@ubbpc.UUCP> Date: 2 Dec 88 15:04:04 GMT References: <388@ubbpc.UUCP> <16187@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <599@quintus.UUCP> <1064@raspail.UUCP> Organization: UNISYS CS, Blue Bell, PA Lines: 41 In article <1064@raspail.UUCP>, bga@raspail.UUCP (Bruce Albrecht) writes: > In article <406@ubbpc.UUCP>, wgh@ubbpc.UUCP (William G. Hutchison) writes: > > ... this supports my earlier thesis: that committee- > > designed languages fail & individually-designed languages succeed. Now that > > I have defined success and failure more clearly, more people might agree. > > I have sometimes agreed with this thesis, but I really wonder if it's just > another truism. There are a lot of languages out there that were developed > by individuals (Snobol, Icon, Euclid, Trac, FP, etc.) that probably would be > considered successes under your first criterion, but never achieved wide-scale > popularity, for numerous reasons, including lack of publicity or machine > implementations, or similarity to other languages. > [ shrewd remarks about politics, etc. deleted. ] Good point. It looks like a dichotomy into success/failure is too crude a way to categorize languages. Perhaps the following would find more assent and less anguished howling from Algol cultists? SUCCESS-A (widely used throughout the world) BASIC, C, COBOL, FORTRAN, Lotus 1-2-3, Pascal, RPG SUCCESS-B (having elegant design features, but not widely used) Ada (I don't know about this!), Algol-60, Algol-68, APL (this is subjective!), CLU, Edison, Euclid, FP, Icon (?), LISP (this may catch on yet!), Modula-2, occam SUCCESS-C (having a devoted cult) APL, Algol-68, Icon, Modula-2, MUSL, occam, Ratfor (this is waning), Snobol, TRAC (?) FAILURE-D (baroque messes) Ada(?), MUSL, PL/I Now, is it possible to have a rational discussion about what makes a programming language a _practical_ success? -- 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_