History of programming languages---II

• Authors: Thomas J. Bergin, Jr.;Richard G. Gibson, Jr.
• Venue: History of programming languages---II
• Year: 1996

In 1978, the ACM Special Interest Group on Programming Languages(SIGPLAN) sponsored a Conference on the History of ProgrammingLanguages (HOPL). Papers were prepared and presentations made at aConference in Los Angeles, California. The Program Committeeselected thirteen languages that met the criteria of having been inuse for at least 10 years, had significant influence, and werestill in use. The languages were: ALGOL, APL, APT, BASIC, COBOL,FORTRAN,GPSS, JOSS, JOVIAL, LISP, PL/I,SIMULA, and SNOBOL. Theresults of that conference were recorded in History of ProgrammingLanguages, edited by Richard L. Wexelblat [New York: AcademicPress, 19811.The Second ACM SIGPLAN History of Programming LanguagesConference (HOPL-II) took place on April 20-23, 1993 in Cambridge,Massachusetts. The papers prepared for that conference form thebasis of this present volume, along with the transcripts of thepresentations, a keynote address "Language Design as Design" byFred Brooks, a discussion of the period between HOPL and HOPL-II byJean Sarnmet, and a talk on "What Makes History" by Mike Mahoney(the conference historian). There was also a banquet, hosted byBernie Galler, and a closing panel of six language developers,chaired by Mike Mahoney. Unfortunately due to page limitations, thetranscripts of the banquet, Forum, and the closing panel are notincluded in this volume. It is our hope that they can be publishedelsewhere. The Conference was preceeded by a Forum on the Historyof Computing, chaired by Bob Rosin, and the papers presented at theForum complete this volume.The Program Committee for HOPL-II decided to have both invitedand submitted papers, and we believe that the range of languagesand the quality of presentation will make this volume a classic inthe history of programming literature. The languages at HOPL-IIwere: Ada, ALGOL 68, C, C++, CLU, Discrete Simulation Languages,FORMAC, Forth, Icon, Lisp, Monitors and Concurrent Pascal, Pascal,Prolog, and Smalltalk.The majority of this volume is the material on the individuallanguages, with a chapter devoted to each language, as follows:•a paper by each author;•a transcript of the author's presentation;•a transcript of a discussant's remarks (not alllanguages);•a transcript of the question and answer session;•biographies of the authors.It should be noted that some authors' presentations closelyfollowed their papers, and since the book is oversized, thetranscripts of these presentations were omitted, with the kindpermission of the authors.All papers were published as preprints in ACM SIGPLAN Notices,Vol. 28, No. 3 (March 1993). The papers are reprinted here with thepermission of ACM and of the authors. In some cases changes havebeen made by the authors to correct typographical or factualerrors. In some cases additional material has been added, with anappropriate notation by an author or editor.We are indeed pleased to provide this introductory material forthis book. The book is the culmination of work on a 1993 conference(HOPL-II) whose development started in 1990; HOPL-II in turn was afollow-on to the first HOPL, held 15 years earlier (1978).First HOPL ConferenceIn order to put this conference in perspective, it is useful toprovide some information about the first conference of this typethat was held. In 1978 ACM SIGPLAN sponsored a History ofProgramming Languages Conference (HOPL) with Jean E. Sammet asGeneral Chair and Program Chair, and John A. N. Lee as theAdministrative Chair. That conference was composed of invitedpapers for the 13 languages that met the following criteria:(1) were created and in use by 1967;(2) remain in use in 1977; and(3) have had considerable influence on the field ofcomputing.[History of Programming Languages, Richard L. Wexelblat,ed., Academic Press, ACM Monograph Series, 1981 ), page xviii.](The cutoff date of 1967 was chosen to provide perspective froma distance of at least ten years.)The languages chosen by the Program Committee as meeting thosecriteria were: ALGOL, APL, APT, BASIC, COBOL, FORTRAN, GPSS, JOSS,JOVIAL, LISP, PL/I, SIMULA, and SNOBOL. A key person involved inthe early development of each of those languages was invited towrite a paper according to very strict guidelines and with numerousrewrites expected. That conference was deemed a great success byits attendees. The final proceedings, edited by R. L. Wexelblat, isnow the definitive work on the early history of those particularlanguages.Several people asked at that time why a conference was heldrather than simply having people prepare the papers and publishthem in a book. We felt initially--and this was confirmed by theactual occurrence--that the audience discussion after eachpresentation would provide greater insight into the history of theevents and decisions that led to the definition of the languages intheir early forms. Some of the "cross talk" publicly and privatelyamong the attendees--many of whom participated in the creation ofseveral languages--provided significant insights into the earlydevelopments.Second HOPL ConferenceThe first HOPL conference was intended to be only the beginning,and not the end of any consideration of programming languagehistory. As a result, not long after the end of that conference, webegan thinking about a second HOPL Conference, with the intent ofbuilding on what we learned from the first conference, andexpanding its scope and coverage. Due to the pressure of otheractivities, it took many years before we were able to focus on asecond conference. During that time period, a cadre of ourcolleagues was developed that also strongly promulgated the need tostudy the history of computing. In fact, the establishment of thejournal Annals of the History of Computing, to be publishedby AFIPS, was announced at the end of the first HOPL Conferencewith Bernard A. Galler as Editor-in-Chief. Since 1987, John A. N.Lee has been the Editor-in-Chief, and in 1992 the IEEE ComputerSociety became the publisher. In January 1996, Michael R. Williamstook over as the third Annals Editor-in-Chief. ACM has alsosponsored several other history conferences, covering the fields ofscientific comptaing, medical informatics, and personalworkstations.Finally, we developed a proposal in 1990, and the ACM SIGPLANExecutive Committee authorized us to proceed with this SecondHistory of Programming Languages Conference (HOPL-II). We thencalled back to voluntary duty several members of the originalconference-organizing committees and many of them were happy tojoin us in this new endeavor. In addition, we made a consciouseffort to bring in newer/younger people who also have an interestin examining the past. But organizing a history conference is by nomeans as simple as organizing a technical conference dealing withcurrent or recent research in which all the papers are to becontributed and for which there is tremendous competition toparticipate. This is primarily because most professionals in thecomputer field prefer to concentrate on current and future workrather than looking backward to what they have accomplished. Adetailed description of how the final program was created is givenin the next section of this introduction.The study of various aspects of computing history is not merelyan intellectual exercise; it shows us how we reached our currentcondition, indicates effective approaches as well as past errors,and provides perspective and insight for the future, and a surersense of how to get there.The conference itself was held April 20 to 23, 1993, inCambridge, Massachusetts with preprints issued as the March 1993issue of ACM SIGPLAN Notices (Volume 28, Number 3). Thisbook contains an enormous amount of material not included in thepreprints, including some revised papers as well as transcripts ofthe talks, the Forum papers, the keynote address, and othermaterial that provide a record of what occurred during theconference. We regret that space limitations prevented theinclusion of the transcripts of the banquet, the closing panel andthe Forum. We hope that they can be published elsewhere.