Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Andy Walker Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Command Languages Versus Programming Languages Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2024 14:43:04 +0100 Organization: Not very much Lines: 40 Message-ID: References: <20240329084454.0000090f@gmail.com> <20240329101248.556@kylheku.com> <20240329104716.777@kylheku.com> <20240330112105.553@kylheku.com> <87r0fp8lab.fsf@tudado.org> <87wmpg7gpg.fsf@tudado.org> <87plv6jv1i.fsf@nosuchdomain.example.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Date: Sun, 07 Apr 2024 13:43:05 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="bab4f6d77131bf4dcc09425e0d82c8c1"; logging-data="2956250"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18/3Q8qoOhFlmETvPzAAslT" User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird Cancel-Lock: sha1:/o2MVCl/4/AaOn+KHvBUsWuQU04= Content-Language: en-GB In-Reply-To: Bytes: 4044 On 06/04/2024 22:54, Janis Papanagnou wrote: > But, WRT Algol 60 vs. Algol 68, these are quite different languages; > I wouldn't call the latter a new version. I agree; OTOH, WG2.1 accepted A68 as the "new" Algol. The instant question here was what an unadorned "Algol" means, and while I can see an argument for saying that it shouldn't happen, I can see no argument for saying that it, by default, refers to A60. [...] > Algol 60, OTOH, also had an own history and continued use after 1968; > to my knowledge it had been used in numerical mathematics [...]. It was intended for use in the /description/ of NA, for which it was decently suitable. But it was unsuitable as a practical language for use in NA: no proper error control, no double-length numbers, no array slices, and doubtless other things I've forgotten. So you could say "Here is my new whizzo algorithm for [whatever]", get it published, and "everyone" would understand what your code meant. But in practice you would transcribe it into Fortran or some Autocode, typically twice as fast and with much better practical facilities. > But Algol 60, Simula, and also Algol 68 are all meaningless today, I > (sadly) dare to say. You're probably right. But A68G is still a nice language. It creaks in places, and it's not suitable for everything [what is?]. But it serves all my programming needs. It has the advantage, in practice, over C that all the common programming blunders -- use of uninitialised variables, array accesses out of bounds, numerical overflow, dereferencing null pointers, memory leaks and consequences thereof, the things that cause most of the security holes -- are picked up either by the compiler or at run-time before they can do any damage. I expect there are modern languages that also do that, but at my age it's not worth learning a new language when the old one works perfectly well. -- Andy Walker, Nottingham. Andy's music pages: www.cuboid.me.uk/andy/Music Composer of the day: www.cuboid.me.uk/andy/Music/Composers/Haydn