Re: Algol history, was specifying semantics

On 7/3/2014 4:51 AM, Anton Ertl wrote:


>
> The story I read (IIRC in the HOPL paper on Algol 68 was that this
> split happened in 1965 or so, leading to Wirth and Hoare publishing a
> paper on Algol W in 1966. So that was not when Algol68 was revised,
> but when Algol 60 was revised. Wirth and Hoare wanted a relatively
> conservative revision, while the other wanted a revolutionary
> revision.


<snip history>


Thank you for the update. It was before my day, and I wasn't interested
in the politics, and so never quite got it straight.


I think one reason why formal semantics (and VWG) never became more
popular was that the minority, largely academics, controlled important
university posts and journal boards while the more industrial majority
did not. I know Klaus Wirth personally prevented publication of papers
that differed from the philosophical positions of the minority or that
reported work in the majority tradition or from industry. Academic
infighting can be quite vicious, and not just in the language world;
such politics led to the founding of SP&E, among other things.


Ivan

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