Re: Command Languages Versus Programming Languages

On 06/04/2024 22:54, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

But, WRT Algol 60 vs. Algol 68, these are quite different languages;
I wouldn't call the latter a new version.

I agree;  OTOH, WG2.1 accepted A68 as the "new" Algol.  The
instant question here was what an unadorned "Algol" means, and while
I can see an argument for saying that it shouldn't happen, I can see
no argument for saying that it, by default, refers to A60.
[...]

Algol 60, OTOH, also had an own history and continued use after 1968;
to my knowledge it had been used in numerical mathematics [...].

It was intended for use in the /description/ of NA, for which
it was decently suitable.  But it was unsuitable as a practical language
for use in NA:  no proper error control, no double-length numbers, no
array slices, and doubtless other things I've forgotten.  So you could
say "Here is my new whizzo algorithm for [whatever]", get it published,
and "everyone" would understand what your code meant.  But in practice
you would transcribe it into Fortran or some Autocode, typically twice
as fast and with much better practical facilities.

But Algol 60, Simula, and also Algol 68 are all meaningless today, I
(sadly) dare to say.

You're probably right.  But A68G is still a nice language.  It
creaks in places, and it's not suitable for everything [what is?].  But
it serves all my programming needs.  It has the advantage, in practice,
over C that all the common programming blunders -- use of uninitialised
variables, array accesses out of bounds, numerical overflow, dereferencing
null pointers, memory leaks and consequences thereof, the things that
cause most of the security holes -- are picked up either by the compiler
or at run-time before they can do any damage.  I expect there are modern
languages that also do that, but at my age it's not worth learning a new
language when the old one works perfectly well.
--
Andy Walker, Nottingham.
    Andy's music pages: www.cuboid.me.uk/andy/Music
    Composer of the day: www.cuboid.me.uk/andy/Music/Composers/Haydn