Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!gatech!udel!burdvax!ubbpc!wgh
From: wgh@ubbpc.UUCP (William G. Hutchison)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Algol-68 down for the count (was: Why have FORTRAN 8x at all?)
Summary: semantics: definition of success/failure
Message-ID: <406@ubbpc.UUCP>
Date: 28 Nov 88 13:59:33 GMT
References: <388@ubbpc.UUCP> <16187@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <599@quintus.UUCP> <7724@boring.cwi.nl>
Organization: UNISYS CS, Blue Bell, PA
Lines: 51

In article <7724@boring.cwi.nl>, dik@cwi.nl (Dik T. Winter) writes:
> In article <404@ubbpc.UUCP> wgh@ubbpc.UUCP (William G. Hutchison) writes:
>  > In article <591@tuck.nott-cs.UUCP>, anw@nott-cs.UUCP 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 
>  > seriously, yours, and Math. Centrum in Amsterdam.
>  >  If that is not an embarrassing debacle for a language design, what
>  > is?  Ten million computer owners elected not to use Algol-68, and (order of
>  > magnitude) 2 institutions chose to use it.
> Strange that a (semi-commercial) corporation like NAG has produced a complete
> numerical library for Algol-68 if only 2 institutes used it!

 Thanks for the update.
Before we get embroiled in a meaningless argument, let me point out that there
are at least two criteria for success of a programming language:
  success-1: having lots of neat design ideas, and
  success-2: being widely adopted.
So Algol-60 had success-1, but failure-2, since it never caught on outside of
Europe. I thought of Algol-68 as failure-1 (because of the baroque, unusable
language spec), and failure-2 (because a negligible part of the computer
community uses it).  Enough people have responded that I may revise my opinion
and decide that Algol-68 had success-1, but there is no evidence that it had
success-2.

 Here are some more opinions:

Ada	success-1?	failure-2?	small group (Ichbiah & Co.)?
Algol-60 success-1	failure-2	small group
Algol-68 success-1??	failure-2	committee
C	success-1	success-2	small group
COBOL	failure-1	success-2	committee
FORTRAN	failure-1	success-2	small group
FORTH	failure-1	success-2?	small group
LISP	success-1	failure-2(this is changing)	small group
Modula2	success-1	success-2	small group
Pascal	success-1	success-2	small group
PL/I	failure-1	failure-2	large committee

(I need more info about Ada: did a small group around Ichbiah define most of
the language, or does it qualify as a committee design? Also, I do not honestly
know if Ada qualifies as a success yet.)

 I still maintain that this supports my earlier thesis: that committee-
designed languages fail and individually-designed languages succeed.  Now that
I have defined success and failure more clearly, more people might agree.
-- 
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_