spate of programming languages

spate of programming languages

[Ramesh S. Mantri]

Hi,
	My question is actually regarding Modula-3, so I do not know
whether this is an appropraite place to post this article.
	I have been programming for nearly 10 years now but only in the
academic environment. So my interest is mainly concerning the features
provided by various PLs. Quite recently I started learning Ada hoping
that I might find it useful someday. So far it has been a good experience.
	I was told that Modula-3 was another good language. So I browsed
through a book on Modula-3. I was surprised to find the wealth of features
that it provides, some of which seemed to me to have been borrowed from Ada.
Is that true? Next, the book says Modula-3 was developed at SRC, DEC. Pardon
my ignorance, but I always thought Modula-2 was developed by Nicklaus Wirth
et al. If so, is it not a violation of some sort of copyrights to borrow the
name Modula-3?
	The number of Programming Languages which have been developed is so
large that it does not seem possible to me to browse through all the language
features, let alone program using these languages : Fortran-90, Ada, C, C++,
Eiffel, Modula-3, Java, ... to mention a few. Can someone suggest where to look
if one is interested in finding it out the State-of-the-Art of research in
Programming Languages? I am aware of only ACM Transactions on Programming
Languages. ( Just curious ... )
regards.
--- Ramesh Mantri

Re: spate of programming languages

[William Clodius]

Ramesh:

First you might try posting in comp.lang.modula3, or comp.lang.misc as
there is almost nothing in your post that is Ada specific.

Second, as to your specific questions:

The developers of Modula 3 cite many influences, among them Ada.

Modula-2 was developed by Nicklaus Wirth. I don't know if he has a
copyright on the name Modula (I suspect not because it is now an
international standard), but the Modula 3 FAQ states that the
developers had Wirth's blessing to develop Modula 3.

As to state of the art languages, although there are a large number of
recent languages, most popular languages have to have more than a few
years history behind them to become popular. Java seems to be the
exception that proves this rule.  This in turn implies that they are
typically not quite state of the art, but also means that they are
more robust, portable, and better supported than most proper state of
the art languages.

However, if you are truly interested in state of the art languages
then you could hardly do better than consult Mark Leone's main page

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/mleone/web/language-research.html

and his language overviews page

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/mleone/web/language/overviews.html

As to possible suggestions of languages to study, you seem to have a
good foundation in imperative object oriented languages.  I might
suggest examining a few other paradigms, e.g., logic (Mercury and
Goedel have good reputations), data flow (Sisal, J, NESL, Nial, or
perhaps F), high order functional, (Clean, Haskell, Objective Caml),
or high level language (Perl 5.0, Python, or Icon).

I am cross-posting this to comp.lang.misc, and limiting followups to
comp.lang.misc.
-- 

William B. Clodius		Phone: (505)-665-9370
Los Alamos National Laboratory	Email: wclodius@lanl.gov
Los Alamos, NM 87545

Re: spate of programming languages

[Aron Felix Gurski]

Ramesh S. Mantri wrote:
> 
> Hi,
>         My question is actually regarding Modula-3, so I do not know
> whether this is an appropraite place to post this article.
>         I have been programming for nearly 10 years now but only in the
> academic environment. So my interest is mainly concerning the features
> provided by various PLs. Quite recently I started learning Ada hoping
> that I might find it useful someday. So far it has been a good experience.
>         I was told that Modula-3 was another good language. So I browsed
> through a book on Modula-3. I was surprised to find the wealth of features
> that it provides, some of which seemed to me to have been borrowed from Ada.
> Is that true? Next, the book says Modula-3 was developed at SRC, DEC. Pardon
> my ignorance, but I always thought Modula-2 was developed by Nicklaus Wirth
> et al. If so, is it not a violation of some sort of copyrights to borrow the
> name Modula-3?

The book is correct about where Modula-3 was developed. The people who developed
Modula-3 were, as you might expect, familiar with Modula-2 in the form that it
had at that time. When they started working on the design of Modula-3, they did
have contact with Niklaus Wirth. It was in order to discuss the design of the
language, though, not because they were worried about the name. The name 
Modula-xx is not a registered trademark (unlike PL/1 up to PL/100). I wasn't
involved in the development of Modula-3, so I can't say for sure, but I doubt
that Wirth had anything agains using the name Modula-3.

>         The number of Programming Languages which have been developed is so
> large that it does not seem possible to me to browse through all the language
> features, let alone program using these languages : Fortran-90, Ada, C, C++,
> Eiffel, Modula-3, Java, ... to mention a few. Can someone suggest where to look
> if one is interested in finding it out the State-of-the-Art of research in
> Programming Languages? I am aware of only ACM Transactions on Programming
> Languages. ( Just curious ... )

Aside from the ACM journals, I use the Usenet comp.* conferences to try to keep
up with what is happening in the world of programming languages. It isn't easy!

> regards.
> --- Ramesh Mantri

Re: spate of programming languages

[Robert A Duff]

In article <31F93F02.23D2@sn.no>, Aron Felix Gurski  <agurski@sn.no> wrote:
>... a registered trademark (unlike PL/1 up to PL/100). 

Are you saying that these are registered trademarks, presumably of IBM?
So that if I sell a language called PL/100, I'll get in trouble, but if
I sell PL/101, it's OK?

- Bob

Re: spate of programming languages

[Aron Felix Gurski]

Robert A Duff wrote:
> 
> In article <31F93F02.23D2@sn.no>, Aron Felix Gurski  <agurski@sn.no> wrote:
> >... a registered trademark (unlike PL/1 up to PL/100).
> 
> Are you saying that these are registered trademarks, presumably of IBM?
> So that if I sell a language called PL/100, I'll get in trouble, but if
> I sell PL/101, it's OK?
> 
> - Bob

Yes! Back in '71 there was a group developing a programming language 
here in Norway tht they wanted to call PL/70. They checked it out and
found that IBM had registered as trademarks PL/1 to PL/100 and, 
therefore, had to call the programming language something else 
(eventually, it was called Mary -- which presumably is *not* 
a registered trademark ;-)  )

					-- Aron