From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,d1df6bc3799debed X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: mheaney@ni.net (Matthew Heaney) Subject: Re: Not intended for use in medical, Date: 1997/05/13 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 241405842 Distribution: world References: <3.0.32.19970423164855.00746db8@mail.4dcomm.com> <5kmek2$9re@bcrkh13.bnr.ca> Organization: Estormza Software Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-05-13T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article , jsa@alexandria (Jon S Anthony) wrote: >> > The reason there were not more Algol-68 compilers, and that for example >> > by comparison, Ada compilers flourished, is simple. There was not enough >> > commercial pressure to generate these compilers...[snip]...In the end >> > the "failure" of Algol-68 was a marketing issue, not a technical one. > >Well, yes, but this is more an explanation based on a symptom. The >real real reason is that A68 used a real formal specification based on >W-grammars. If not the implementors, then certainly the joe-average >person looking into the language found this more or less impenetrable >=> can't understand what it is => no hope of understanding how to use >it => no desire to use it => no demand for it => no commercial >pressure for compilers. Here's another explanation: "The real question is why [Algol-68] did not come into more widespread use, and the answer here is simple enough: because it was not implemented widely enough, or soon enough. And the reason for that is that implementation was too hard, and the reason for that was on account of a relatively small number of troublespots, not inherently necessary for the basis principles of the language and certainly not for its orthogonality." Quoted from "A History of Algol-68," by C. H. Lindsey, chapter II in the book History of Programming Languages Thomas J. Bergin Richard G. Gibson ACM Press/Addison-Wesley, 1996 ISBN 0-201-89502-1 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Matthew Heaney Software Development Consultant (818) 985-1271