Hi Andrew,

You wrote in an epistle to Clem Clarke:

AG>The language that solves all known problems was developed in the late
AG>'60's - Algol-68. This had all the benefits of all the languages known
AG>at that time (and no new features have been invented since AFAIK). It
AG>died because IBM wanted to ship PL/1 instead - which ahd all the defects
AG>of all known languages of the time instead. Algol-68 was not written in
AG>America, and not by IBM - so it was a dead duck.

ALGOL-68 was the revision of the language. The original version was
ALGOL-60 (which incidentally was the first programming language I
learned). It was (and I suspect still is) one of the best designed
general purpose computer languages but, as you say, IBM had one of their
bouts of NIH and created PL/1, though I dispute the fact it had all the
defects of other known languages. It certainly did not inherit my pet
hate in FORTRAN and BASIC, automatic declarations. I've wasted more time
tracing problems with mis-typed variable names than any other single
error in FORTRAN code I've had to maintain.

Regrettably the cloak of NIH leadership has been taken over and further
refined by MS :-(

Algol-68 is supposed to be available for OS/2, but I don't know anyone
who has it.

George

 * SLMR 2.1a * Desk: A very large wastebasket with drawers.

--- Maximus/2 3.01