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From: Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com>
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Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?Re:_technology_discussion_=e2=86=92_does_the_world_need_a?=
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Date: Sun, 8 Sep 2024 06:04:00 +0200
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On 03.09.2024 00:18, Keith Thompson wrote:
> Ben Bacarisse <ben@bsb.me.uk> writes:
>> Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> writes:
> [...]
>>> I'm mildly disappointed.  Since arguments are *passed* and
>>> functions/procedures are *called*, surely it would have made more sense
>>> to use "pass by value" rather than "call by value", especially in a
>>> language where the mechanism can vary per parameter.
>>
>> All that is, I think, due to subsequent changes in (English) language
>> use.  In Algol 60, procedures were invoked and /parameters/ were called
>> by value or name.  Maybe the term was intended to reflect the idea that
>> the code in the body "called for the value" of the parameter.
>>
>> The word "call" now refers, almost universally, to invoking a function
>> or procedure.  As a result, the idea of "calling a parameter" reads
>> oddly, but at the time I'm sure it seemed perfectly reasonable.
> 
> I just searched the Algol 60 report for all occurrences of the word
> "call".  It does refer to both procedures and parameters being "called",
> but parameters are only "called by value" or "called by name", never
> just "called".
> 
> It's difficult to tell what the idiomatic usage would have been at the
> time.

Indeed. Maybe we need to consider some more context information about
that time.

I've read that Algol 60 adopted the parameter passing principles from
the lambda-calculus; value parameters and name parameters. (I haven't
searched for respective documents.)

Janis