Path: ...!feeds.phibee-telecom.net!news.mixmin.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!bawden.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Alan Bawden <alan@csail.mit.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: Lisp history: IF, etc.
Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2024 22:29:50 -0400
Organization: ITS Preservation Society
Lines: 17
Message-ID: <86v84xoo69.fsf@williamsburg.bawden.org>
References: <uu54la$3su5b$6@dont-email.me> <uu636l$7haj$1@dont-email.me>
	<20240329084454.0000090f@gmail.com> <uu6om5$cmv8$1@dont-email.me>
	<20240329101248.556@kylheku.com> <uu6t9h$dq4d$1@dont-email.me>
	<20240329104716.777@kylheku.com> <uu8p02$uebm$1@dont-email.me>
	<20240330112105.553@kylheku.com> <uudrfg$2cskm$1@dont-email.me>
	<87r0fp8lab.fsf@tudado.org> <uuehdj$2hshe$1@dont-email.me>
	<87wmpg7gpg.fsf@tudado.org>
	<LISP-20240402085115@ram.dialup.fu-berlin.de>
	<20240402084057.881@kylheku.com>
	<86h6gjpq3i.fsf_-_@williamsburg.bawden.org>
	<m3frw2vlok.fsf@leonis4.robolove.meer.net>
	<86cyr6pb2l.fsf@williamsburg.bawden.org> <uukr0q$7l0i$1@dont-email.me>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Injection-Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2024 02:29:51 +0200 (CEST)
Injection-Info: bawden.eternal-september.org; posting-host="e07f213705933abd0291280324cd0958";
	logging-data="425707"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org";	posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/DGhvUINL409bgvqmOpUV/"
User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.4 (gnu/linux)
Cancel-Lock: sha1:KVkbL08m3YoI2XC7N+p68Phino8=
	sha1:Osr5SZN6ApTKUpvZsoRX1qRht/0=
Bytes: 2178

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:

   On Wed, 03 Apr 2024 14:15:14 -0400, Alan Bawden wrote:

   > Other programming languages at the time (e.g. FORTRAN and ALGOL) only
   > had conditional statements.

   Algol60 had if-expressions, e.g.

       a := if b then c else d

Ah yes, the history is slightly more complicated than I remembered.
Algol 58 did not have conditional expressions.  But McCarthy then joined
the Algol committee and he suggested that they add conditional
expressions.  And so they do appear in Algol 60.

- Alan