Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!stl!stc!praxis!hilbert!mct
From: mct@praxis.co.uk (Martyn Thomas)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Algol-68 down for the count (was: Why have FORTRAN 8x at all?)
Message-ID: <3395@newton.praxis.co.uk>
Date: 28 Nov 88 12:10:51 GMT
References: <388@ubbpc.UUCP> <16187@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <599@quintus.UUCP> <404@ubbpc.UUCP> <1286@X.UUCP>
Sender: news@praxis.co.uk
Reply-To: mct@praxis.co.uk (Martyn Thomas)
Organization: Praxis Systems plc, Bath, UK
Lines: 15

In article <404@ubbpc.UUCP>, wgh@ubbpc.UUCP (William G. Hutchison) writes:
> 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.

Research at MC-Amsterdam by van der Meulen (if my memory is accurate)
showed that learning Algol 68 greatly reduced the time to learn subsequent
languages, and that if you have to learn more than two languages, starting
with Algol 68 reduced the overall learning time for the other languages by
more than the time taken for Algol 68.  I'll post the reference if I can
locate it.

Martyn Thomas, Praxis plc, 20 Manvers Street, Bath BA1 1PX UK.
Tel:	+44-225-444700.   Email:   ...!uunet!mcvax!ukc!praxis!mct