As a fan of Algol 68, I'm pretty excited for this.
For people who aren't familiar with the language, pretty much all modern languages are descended from Algol 60 or Algol 68. C descends from Algol 60, so pretty much every popular modern language derives from Algol in some way [1].
Yes, massively influential, but was it ever used or popular?, I always think of it as sort of the poster child for the danger of "design by committee".
Sure it's ideas spawned many of today's languages, But wasn't that because at the time nobody could afford to actually implement the spec. So we ended up with a ton of "algols buts" (like algol but can actually be implemented and runs on real hardware).
Without knowing what your interests/motivations and backgrounds are, it is hard to make good recommendations, but if you didn't know about rosettacode or github I figured I should start with that
In my mind this highlights something I've been thinking about, the differences between FOSS influenced by corporate needs vs FOSS driven by the hacker community.
FOSS driven by hackers is about increasing and maintaining support (old and new hardware, languages etc..) while FOSS influenced by corporate needs is about standardizing around 'blessed' platforms like is happening in Linux distributions with adoption of Rust (architectures unsupported by Rust lose support).
I find this great, finally an easy way to play with ALGOL 68, beyond the few systems that made use of it, like the UK Navy project at the time.
Ironically, Algol 68 and Modula-2 are getting more contributions than Go, on GCC frontends, which seems stuck in version 1.18, in a situation similar to gcj.
This is great news for GCC! I love how this decision supports older languages like Algol 68, keeping them alive in the FOSS world. It shows the hacker community's dedication to preserving diverse tools.
ALGO 68 (dc) was the go to language for Burrough's [6-8]x00 variants.
These were fairly popular for awhile and supported advanced features like multiprocessing. The demand for exercising the full range of capabilities was kind of niche but an "amateur", like myself, could make a few bucks if you knew ALGOL.
I used to have the grey manual for the Burrough's variant - I'll have to poke around to see if it's in the attic somewhere.
Not relevant to GCC, but one use for an old A68 compiler was apparently to be adapted for the old NA Software Fortran 90 compiler, I was told by a former colleague. I'd have expected Ada to be a closer fit, and I don't know how well the decision worked out.
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[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 38.8 ms ] threadFor people who aren't familiar with the language, pretty much all modern languages are descended from Algol 60 or Algol 68. C descends from Algol 60, so pretty much every popular modern language derives from Algol in some way [1].
[1] https://ballingt.com/assets/prog_lang_poster.png
Aside from historical interest, why are you excited for it?
Sure it's ideas spawned many of today's languages, But wasn't that because at the time nobody could afford to actually implement the spec. So we ended up with a ton of "algols buts" (like algol but can actually be implemented and runs on real hardware).
GCC has some rules to add, and keep frontends on the main compiler, instead of additional branches, e.g. GNU Pascal never got added.
So if there is no value with maintenance effort, the GCC steering will eventually discuss this.
https://github.com/search?q=algol68&type=repositories
Without knowing what your interests/motivations and backgrounds are, it is hard to make good recommendations, but if you didn't know about rosettacode or github I figured I should start with that
Many have been digitalized throughout the years across Bitsavers, ACM/SIGPLAN, IEEE, or university departments.
Also heavily influenced languages like ESPOL, NEWP, PL/I and its variants.
Godcc is a command-line interface for Compiler Explorer written in Algol 68.
FOSS driven by hackers is about increasing and maintaining support (old and new hardware, languages etc..) while FOSS influenced by corporate needs is about standardizing around 'blessed' platforms like is happening in Linux distributions with adoption of Rust (architectures unsupported by Rust lose support).
Ironically, Algol 68 and Modula-2 are getting more contributions than Go, on GCC frontends, which seems stuck in version 1.18, in a situation similar to gcj.
Either way, today is for Algol's celebration.
These were fairly popular for awhile and supported advanced features like multiprocessing. The demand for exercising the full range of capabilities was kind of niche but an "amateur", like myself, could make a few bucks if you knew ALGOL.
I used to have the grey manual for the Burrough's variant - I'll have to poke around to see if it's in the attic somewhere.