Algol 68

Computer programming language with a very orthogonal syntax and semantics; possibly the first imperative language to be given a full formal specification of syntax and semantics.

Designed to be an improved successor to Algol 60, but its success was hampered by a rebellion in the ranks that led to the more down-to-earth Pascal language.

Algol 68 was ahead of its time, and contained many features that are considered state-of-the-art in modern languages. As Bjarne Stroustrup explains in his book The Design and Evolution of C++, Algol 68 had a significant influence on many features and the syntax/semantics of C++. For instance, the sucess of operator overloading in Algol 68 persuaded Stroustrup to persevere with it in C++.

Features of Algol 68:

• A general purpose language with a clean, consistant and unambiguous syntax.
• A fully-checked type-system with structures, unions, pointers, arrays and procedures.
• User-defined operators and operator overloading.
• Typed memory allocation with transparent garbage collection.
• Unions inherently know their current type.
• Dynamic sized arrays know their current bounds.
• Good string handling via flexible arrays of characters.
• Array and structure displays can be used in any context.
• Advanced handling of arrays of any rank such as slicing.
• Complex arithmetic.
• Clear distinction between value semantics and reference semantics.
• No distinction between compile-time constants and run-time values.
• Modular programming with information hiding and type checking.

This is the genealogy of the programming language Algol 68:

Algol 68 is a child of Algol 60.
Algol 68 was born in year 1970, and has not changed much since that time.

This genealogy is brought to you by the Programming Languages Genealogy Project. Please send comments to thbz.