There were literally hundreds of languages around when the ALGOL 68 effort started, so there was lots of experience to draw from.
Both the lack of concrete syntax and the 2-level grammars were disputed at the time, and one might remember that Wirth and Hoare designed ALGOL W as a reaction against the ALGOL 68 effort. (I liked both languages, silly me.)
My original comment was not intend as snark against the ALGOL 68 designers, but rather to point out that the language had a lot going for it, even with these serious flaws. But as is often the case, we learn more from mistakes than successes.
When I was reading the ALGOL working group archives, the impression that I got was that Wirth and Hoare designed (what would later be called) ALGOL W as a candidate proposal for ALGOL X, the latter being what would eventually evolve into ALGOL 68.
A number of eminences in the ALGOL 60 world strongly resisted the philosophy behind ALGOL 68, and spoke up vehemently against the direction that the language was going in. Wirth and Hoare were indeed developing ALGOL X (W comes before X), while what is now ALGOL 68 was ALGOL Y. The X supporters vehemently opposed the direction in which Y was going, and many of them, including Wirth and Hoare, disassociated themselves from the whole enterprise. At that point, the X project was essentially dead (though it's possible to consider Pascal as its immediate successor).
By the way, I want to praise C. H. Lindsey, whose “Informal Introduction to ALGOL 68” rescued the language from indecipherability and showed that there was a useful language lurking inside.
A lot of this history is lost now. I heard bits and pieces of it in my time on the periphery of the UBC ALGOL 68 project circa 1970-5. The Wikipedia articles on ALGOL W and 68 also hint at it.
Much has been saved, too, although finding it is not always easy. FWIW most of my research was based on the stuff here, but mostly focused on ALGOL 60:
Comments
There were literally hundreds of languages around when the ALGOL 68 effort started, so there was lots of experience to draw from.
Both the lack of concrete syntax and the 2-level grammars were disputed at the time, and one might remember that Wirth and Hoare designed ALGOL W as a reaction against the ALGOL 68 effort. (I liked both languages, silly me.)
My original comment was not intend as snark against the ALGOL 68 designers, but rather to point out that the language had a lot going for it, even with these serious flaws. But as is often the case, we learn more from mistakes than successes.
When I was reading the ALGOL working group archives, the impression that I got was that Wirth and Hoare designed (what would later be called) ALGOL W as a candidate proposal for ALGOL X, the latter being what would eventually evolve into ALGOL 68.
A number of eminences in the ALGOL 60 world strongly resisted the philosophy behind ALGOL 68, and spoke up vehemently against the direction that the language was going in. Wirth and Hoare were indeed developing ALGOL X (W comes before X), while what is now ALGOL 68 was ALGOL Y. The X supporters vehemently opposed the direction in which Y was going, and many of them, including Wirth and Hoare, disassociated themselves from the whole enterprise. At that point, the X project was essentially dead (though it's possible to consider Pascal as its immediate successor).
By the way, I want to praise C. H. Lindsey, whose “Informal Introduction to ALGOL 68” rescued the language from indecipherability and showed that there was a useful language lurking inside.
A lot of this history is lost now. I heard bits and pieces of it in my time on the periphery of the UBC ALGOL 68 project circa 1970-5. The Wikipedia articles on ALGOL W and 68 also hint at it.
Much has been saved, too, although finding it is not always easy. FWIW most of my research was based on the stuff here, but mostly focused on ALGOL 60:
https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/algol/alg...