Re: PhD or books on history of individual languages

On Sun, 8 Mar 2020 21:36:31 +0000, "Derek M. Jones"
<derek@_NOSPAM_knosof.co.uk> wrote:


>> It seems to be usual for a language to be in common use before
>> anyone gets around to writing a standard. That complicates the
>> process.
>
>I'm not sure that can be said for Modula-2, whose fans thought it
>was not popular yet because it did not have an ISO standard.


??? C was in use for 17 years before its standard appeared. Modula-2
took 18 years, but that is directly comparable ... the committees move
at the speed of frozen molasses.




No the problem lay elsewhere: IMO Modula-2 had a number of things
working against it right from the beginning.


Modula-2 was introduced in 1977, but few people knew anything about it
until Byte magazine devoted an edition to it in 1984. By that time,
OOP was catching on everywhere and Modula-2 had to compete with both
Object Pascal and "C with Objects" (what became C++). But Modula-2
was not OO and did not easily support it. Modula-2 was an alternative
to C and Pascal, but not to C++ or Object Pascal.


And many Pascal programmers who might have switched to Modula-2 didn't
like its uppercase keywords. The addition of compiler switches to
permit lowercase was only partly successful: for some time there were
issues mixing modules that were compiled differently.


Note that N.Wirth collaborated on the development of Object Pascal, so
it seems that he was well aware of the OO movement and that Modula-2
was intended for a different audience ... one that unfortunately never
materialized.




Modula-3 (which was from DEC-Olivetti, not N.Wirth) was a good
alternative to both C++ and Object Pascal, but it arrived too late to
make a difference.


YMMV,
George
[Having a standard is no guarantee of success. Anyone here still
use Dibol? INCITS 165-1992[S2007] -John]

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