From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.2 (2018-09-13) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.2 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [45.79.103.53]) by inbox.vuxu.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id 1aa92270 for ; Tue, 4 Dec 2018 14:43:27 +0000 (UTC) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 74371A208D; Wed, 5 Dec 2018 00:43:26 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 55A439E883; Wed, 5 Dec 2018 00:43:10 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id E7B3C9E883; Wed, 5 Dec 2018 00:43:07 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mercury.lcs.mit.edu (mercury.lcs.mit.edu [18.26.0.122]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 965F39E882 for ; Wed, 5 Dec 2018 00:43:07 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11178) id A830E18C0A0; Tue, 4 Dec 2018 09:43:06 -0500 (EST) To: tuhs@tuhs.org Message-Id: <20181204144306.A830E18C0A0@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2018 09:43:06 -0500 (EST) From: jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Subject: Re: [TUHS] Happy birthday, John Backus! X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Cc: jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" > From: Toby Thain > He made amends by being early to recognise that problem, and propose > solutions, in his 1977 ACM Turing Award lecture Actually, I'd consider a far bigger amend to be his work on Algol 60 (he was one of the main contributors), which Hoare so memorably described as "a language so far ahead of its time that it was not only an improvement on its predecessors but also on nearly all its successors". AFAICT, although Algol 60 itself is no longer used, basically _every_ modern programming language (other than wierd, parallel ones, etc) is heavily descended from Algol 60 (e.g. C, via CPL). As for FORTRAN, it's worth recalling that it was originally for the IBM 704, which was their very _first_ commercial computer with core memory! And not a lot of it - early 704's came with a massive 4KW of main memory! So the compiler had to be squeezed into _very_ small space - and it reportedly did an excellent job of emitting efficient code (at a time when a lot of people thought that couldn't be done, and so were hostile to the concept of writing program in HLL). And the compiler had to be written entirely in assembler, to boot... Which brings up an interesting query - I wonder when/what the last compiler written in assembler was? I gather these days compilers for new machines are always bootstrapped as cross-compilers (an X compiler for the Y machine is written in X, run through the X compiler for the [existing] Z machine, and then run though itself, on the Z machine, to produce binary of itself for the Y machine). Noel