It was ... and is mostly associated with what came to be called Algol 58, but not Algol 60.
Another way to look at it is that "almost all systems are difficult to maintain down the line" -- partly because they were not designed with this in mind -- and this is true for most programming languages. However, I don't think this is necessary, but more an artifact of incomplete design. Cheers, Alan ________________________________ From: K. K. Subramaniam <[email protected]> To: Alan Kay <[email protected]> Cc: [email protected] Sent: Mon, June 6, 2011 10:29:49 AM Subject: Re: [fonc] languages Alan, Thanks for the correction. IAL was one of the proposed names for the ALGOL, wasn't it? The reason why this name popped up from my grad days was because something as complicated as designing a new programming language was considered a fun thing to do. It wasn't as much fun for those who had to maintain programs written in them years down the line ;-). Gerald Weinberg's parody - Levine, the great Tailor - should serve as a lesson even today. Subbu On Monday 06 Jun 2011 9:37:02 PM Alan Kay wrote: > Hi Subbu > > Check out when Jules Schwartz actual did Jovial. And the acronym was > actually "Jules' Own Version of the International Algebraic Language" > > Cheers, > > Alan > > > > > ________________________________ > From: K. K. Subramaniam <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Cc: Alan Kay <[email protected]> > Sent: Mon, June 6, 2011 8:34:08 AM > Subject: Re: [fonc] languages > > On Sunday 05 Jun 2011 12:16:33 AM Alan Kay wrote: > > People of my generation (50 years ago) were used to learning and using > > many syntaxes (e.g. one might learn as many as 20 or more machine > > code/assembler languages, plus 10 or more HLLs, both kinds with more > > variability in form and intent than today). > > Learning multiple languages didn't stop with your generation ;-). In the > 80s, the fashion of the day was not only to learn many languages but also > invent your own! One of the languages was called JOVIAL, an acronym for > Jules Own Version of Algol! > > ;-) .. Subbu
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