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Algol-68 seemed like a good idea

The 1960s saw rapid growth in programming languages, which was both good and bad. The first (commercial) languages appeared in the late 1950s, in the guise of Fortran, and Cobol, which were very su…

Bertrand Meyer, “ Niklaus Wirth, or the Importance of Being Simple “, CACM (Jan.9, 2024) The first Algol-68 compiler appeared in 1970, Algol-68R (initially written in Algol-60), implemented by the Royal Radar Establishment (UK). The committee did spend a number of years trying to refine Algol-68, however Hoare recollecting the development of Algol-68 in The Emperor’s Old Clothes, still felt that the improvements were too conservative, “… in my view it does not remove the basic technical flaws in the design, nor does it begin to address the problem of its overwhelming complexity.” Part of the problem with Algol-68 may have stemmed from having “too many cooks in the kitchen”, at a time when programming language design was still a fledgling craft (IFIP Working Group 2.1 supposedly had about 28 members).

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