Term Papers on Programming Languages

Term Paper Title	Programming Languages
# of Words	1306
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	5.22

Programming Languages

     All first programming languages (FORTRAN, LISP and COBOL) were designed in such a way that the individual instruction had a close relationship to the machine instructions. The programs were nevertheless better in these programming languages for humans to understand than in the language assembler.

     In April 1957, IBM had succeeded with a large throw of FORTRAN. This first compiled language enjoyed soon of large popularity, however it was legally protected IBM's mental property and as such. In addition, the Europeans before an American supremacy on the sector of the programming languages worried themselves. At the end of 1957, FORTRAN was seized in the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) and the result was to develop a new computer language. The result should be released as public domain, as competition for the supremacy of IBM on this sector. In Europe at the same time the GAMM (Society for Applied Mathematics and Mechanics) developed definition of a new language operated. One agreed to bundle the forces to develop international programming language.

     In 1958, an international committee met to design a new universal language. Since IBM owned FORTRAN, it could not become a universal language for all countries on all machines. Therefore, an informal meeting held at Mainz in November 1958, about forty interested persons from several European countries held an ALGOL implementation conference in Copenhagen in February 1959.  A "hardware group" was formed for working co-operatively right down to the level of the paper tape code.  This conference also led to the publication by Regnecentralen, Copenhagen, of an 'ALGOL Bulletin', edited by Peter Naur, which served as a forum for further discussion.  During the June 1959 ICIP Conference in Paris, several meetings both formal and informal ones were held.  These meetings revealed some misunderstandings as to the intent of the group, which was primarily responsible for the formulation of the language, but at the same time made it clear that there exists a wide appreciation of the effort involved.  As a result of the discussions, it was decided to hold an international meeting in January 1959 for improving the ALGOL language and preparing a final report.  At a European ALGOL Conference in Paris in November 1959 which was attended by about fifty people, seven European representatives were selected at attend the January 1960 Conference.  They represent the following organisations: Association Francaise de Calcul, British Computer Society, Gesellschaft fuer Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik, and the Nederlands Rekenmachine Genootschap.  The seven representatives held a final preparatory meeting at Mainz in December 1959.

     Meanwhile, in the United States, anyone who wished to suggest changes or corrections to ALGOL was requested to send his comments to the 'Communications of the ACM', where they were published.  These comments then became the basis of consideration for changes in the ALGOL language.  Both the SHARE and USE organisations established ALGOL working groups, and both organisations were represented on the ACM Committee on Programming Languages.  The ACM Committee met in Washington in November 1959 and considered all comments on ALGOL that had been sent to the ACM `Communications'.

     The thirteen representatives , from Denmark, England, France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, and the United States, conferred in Paris from January 11 to 16, 1960.  Before this meeting, Peter Naur worked out a completely new draft report from the preliminary report and the recommendations of the preparatory meetings and the Conference adopted this new form as the basis for its report. The Conference then proceeded to work for agreement on each item of the report. The present report represents the union of the Committee's concepts and the intersection of its agreements.  In April 1962, through the facilities and courtesy of the International Computation Centre some of the authors of ALGOL 60 held another meeting in Rome, Italy.  The pur...

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