Computers occupy a special place in our lives, and they contribute much to the things we do. They generate the weather maps we see on television, they determine the balances for our bank and credit cards, and they produce many of the special effects we see in movies. It makes sense then that the languages we use to program them would be equally as important. C, C++, C#, Java, Pascal, Fortran, Cobol, Visual Basic, Perl, JavaScript, Python, VBScript, Tcl/Tk/Expects, and the multitude of other languages came from somewhere. Each had an effect on those that came after and owes some debt to those that came before. But, no language was more influential than ALGOL.
ALGOL is an acronym that stands for ALGOrithmic Language. It is a computer language designed specifically for calculation. It was developed in the late 1950's by an international committee and was meant to be a universal computing tool. Unfortunately, it never achieved the success of some of its contemporaries like Fortran and Cobol. Today, it is virtually non-existent, surviving only as a reminder of how we got where we are today. Still, it provided us with many present-day programming language features which include:
Like many languages we see today, ALGOL had a set of basic types. They included:
ALGOL also had the ability to create complex types from the above primitives using the type constructors:
ALGOL saw many events and changes through its history. Many of them were political in nature, as committees were created and reviewed the materials produced. Some of the notable language events include:
To recap, ALGOL is a computer language designed specifically for calculation. It isn't seen much today, but it provided us with many present-day programming language features including BNF notation, statement blocks, parameter passing, dynamic arrays, and reserved words. Its set of basic types includes real, int, compl, bool, char, bits, and bytes. More complex types can be made from these using ref, struct, union, and proc. Notable language versions include ALGOL 58, ALGOL 60, and ALGOL 68.
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Information Systems: Help and Review19 chapters | 387 lessons | 4 flashcard sets
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