Version 10 of Algol

Updated 2008-04-23 22:45:34 by LarrySmith

A family of computing languages [L1 ] in the ancestry of nearly all others, but with little discernible direct relation to Tcl.

Algol has

  • block structure with nested scopes
  • dynamic memory allocation
  • call by name parameter passing
  • call by value parameter passing
  • recursion

Algol does not have

  • record structures
  • case or switch statements
  • standard input/output statements

Algol is not in the ancestry of Fortran (at least the early versions), LISP, Cobol, or SNOBOL.

But Algol is in the ancestry of C, and the list of things above that Algol "has" is a strong subset of the things that make C what it is. So I think the relation to Tcl is discernible after all.


I believe it was Dykstra who observed that Algol was a great improvement on many of it's successors. Larry Smith


AMG: Algol is also the name of the solar system that is the setting for the 1987 Sega Master System video game Phantasy Star [L2 ].