- In my mind this highlights something I've been thinking about, the differences between FOSS influenced by corporate needs vs FOSS driven by the hacker community.
FOSS driven by hackers is about increasing and maintaining support (old and new hardware, languages etc..) while FOSS influenced by corporate needs is about standardizing around 'blessed' platforms like is happening in Linux distributions with adoption of Rust (architectures unsupported by Rust lose support).
- As a fan of Algol 68, I'm pretty excited for this.
For people who aren't familiar with the language, pretty much all modern languages are descended from Algol 60 or Algol 68. C descends from Algol 60, so pretty much every popular modern language derives from Algol in some way [1].
[1] https://ballingt.com/assets/prog_lang_poster.png
- I find this great, finally an easy way to play with ALGOL 68, beyond the few systems that made use of it, like the UK Navy project at the time.
Ironically, Algol 68 and Modula-2 are getting more contributions than Go, on GCC frontends, which seems stuck in version 1.18, in a situation similar to gcj.
Either way, today is for Algol's celebration.
- Not relevant to GCC, but one use for an old A68 compiler was apparently to be adapted for the old NA Software Fortran 90 compiler, I was told by a former colleague. I'd have expected Ada to be a closer fit, and I don't know how well the decision worked out.
by InfamousRece
2 subcomments
- Will it compile Knuthâs test? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_or_boy_test
by adsl731898322
1 subcomments
- This is great news for GCC! I love how this decision supports older languages like Algol 68, keeping them alive in the FOSS world. It shows the hacker community's dedication to preserving diverse tools.
by dribblecup
0 subcomment
- ALGO 68 (dc) was the go to language for Burrough's [6-8]x00 variants.
These were fairly popular for awhile and supported advanced features like multiprocessing. The demand for exercising the full range of capabilities was kind of niche but an "amateur", like myself, could make a few bucks if you knew ALGOL.
I used to have the grey manual for the Burrough's variant - I'll have to poke around to see if it's in the attic somewhere.
by NooneAtAll3
1 subcomments
- any algol tutorial recommendations? just to feel what's it all about
- They can just fork off the Golang frontend and it would be the same, maybe patch the runtime a bit.
- Wow that is cool. Pass by name. I always wanted to try it.
- Does GNU Algol 68 use a garbage collector?
by MangoToupe
4 subcomments
- Where might one look to find examples of such code? I've never found algol outside of wikipedia
- [dead]
by pesasuenoX
0 subcomment
- [flagged]
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