Re: The History of the ALGOL Effort

henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
18 Aug 2006 01:30:36 -0400

          From comp.compilers
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From: henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: 18 Aug 2006 01:30:36 -0400
Organization: SP Systems, Toronto, Canada
References: 06-08-082 06-08-086
Keywords: algol60, history
Posted-Date: 18 Aug 2006 01:30:36 EDT

Our moderator wrote:
>[Algol W was basically a tweaked version of Algol 60. I gather that
>one faction wanted to do a minor upgrade of Algol 60, another faction
>wanted to do something all new and wonderful, and the latter faction
>won. -John]


Correct. At the time, the successor to Algol 60 was being referred to as
Algol X, because nobody was quite sure when it would appear. When Wirth's
faction's bid for incremental improvements was rejected, he reportedly
said "well, if I can't have Algol X, I shall have Algol W", and that is
how the language got its name. The next step along that road was Pascal.
(And the all-new-and-wonderful faction went on to produce Algol 68, which
got a lot of attention but could hardly be called a clear success.)
--
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