I don't know how Snobol dropped out of awareness. I almost never heard
of it in the MS-DOS, Windows, or Unix workstation circles, even before
Perl, though occasionally you'd see an interpreter on a BBS or
freeware/shareware list.
The most memorable mention I recall was a grad student in the '90s
remarking that (IIRC) Andy van Dam wanted to teach Snobol to
undergrads. This being funny in a "he might be right, but it's lol so
random, and he wouldn't actually do that" kind of way. (AvD did lead a
grad school class, around '95, to evaluate candidate languages for CS
intro use. We looked at many languages, including Java when it was
called Oak, but I don't recall anyone championing Snobol.)
Could Snobol be another case study of a good technology that fell out of
use, such as due to accidents of products or user bases separate from
the innate merits of the technologies? Lisp and Smalltalk and Prolog
and Betamax people could sympathize. :) Are there any new lessons we
can learn about adoption, or any lessons of linguistics? (Maybe one of
the best string-processing features of Snobol is a Racket procedure or
syntax extension waiting to happen. Or maybe understanding the twist of
fate of Snobol will enlighten
"https://www.neilvandyke.org/racket-money/"; as to why we're not all rich
already. :)
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