[COFF] Happy birthday, Niklaus Wirth!

[bakul at bitblocks.com (Bakul Shah)]

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On Feb 14, 2019, at 10:08 PM, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
> 
> Almost forgot...
> 
> Born on this day in 1934, he pretty much invented ALGOL (and algorithmic languages in general; the running joke was that you could call him by name or by value)...  From Clem Cole: "The actual joke was Europeans called him by name ("ni-klaus vurt") and Americans by value ("nickel-less worth").​

Niklaus Wirth did come up with Algol-W, based on Algol-60 but he
didn't invent Algol-58 or Algol-60 or Algol-68; though he was on
the IFIP Working Group 2.1 for Algol (IIRC, he thought Algol-68
was overly complicated).

BTW, Niklaus Wirth himself supposedly made this self-referential joke:

  “Whereas Europeans generally pronounce my name the right way
  (‘Nick-louse Veert’), Americans invariably mangle it into
  ‘Nickel’s Worth.’ This is to say that Europeans call me by
  name, but Americans call me by value.”

[I haven't found a primary source for this but lots of secondary
sources and variations!]