On Mon, 09 Mar 2020 16:44:06 +0000, Daniel James wrote:

> Algol68R was the first programming language of any type that I used at
> all, ever. I was introduced to it via the cafeteria service (short jobs
> submitted on punched cards, collect your own output from  the printer --
> hence cafeteria) on the university's 1906A when I was an undergraduate.
>
My first exposure to the language was when I read Lindsey & van der
Meulen's "Informal introduction to Algol 68".

https://mcjones.org/dustydecks/archives/2012/09/23/619/

Have you read it? Its very good and, written with a very wry sense of
humour, its about the only book about a programming language that's made
me laugh.

> I also used Algol68RS on the 2980 that was installed while I was a
> postgraduate.
>
I didn't realise it had been ported to the 2900.

> Amazing to think that Algol68 is (approximately) 50 years old! The
> original report having been published in December 1968 and the RRE
> compiler having been announced in 1971. It was never all that widely
> adopted ... but influenced SO much that followed.
>
Yes, and for my money it is still one of the best compilation and runtime
systems I've used. The nearest rival to its crash analysis system I've
seen was in the VME/B COBOL runtime - and both are streets ahead of
anything the Java JVM or GNU C can offer in that area.

> This might interest you: https://accu.org/index.php/journals/2586
>
> (Disclaimer: I wrote it, and any errors are mine ... etc., etc.)
>
Good stuff - I enjoyed reading it.


--
Martin    | martin at
Gregorie  | gregorie dot org

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05