Post #563419

2026-03-07 02:34 UTC

@dougmerritt@mathstodon.xyz @kentpitman@climatejustice.social @ramin_hal9001@fe.disroot.org @screwlisp@gamerplus.org @cdegroot@mstdn.ca This was post-Algol-68, but evidently the DEC folks were not happy with Algol-68 (I found out later *nobody* was happy with Algol-68), so ... various footnotes about where they deviated from the spec; not that I had any reason to care at that point. I encountered the recursive definition of factorial and I was like, "That can't possibly work." (the FORTRAN and Basic manuals were super clear about how each subprogram has its dedicated storage; you just *can't* *have* two instances active at the same time...) 5/n

Replies (1)

@wrog@mastodon.murkworks.net 2026-03-07 02:36

@dougmerritt@mathstodon.xyz @kentpitman@climatejustice.social @ramin_hal9001@fe.disroot.org @screwlisp@gamerplus.org @cdegroot@mstdn.ca Then there was the section on call-by-name (the default parameter passing convention for Algol) ... including a half page on Jenson's Device, that, I should note, was presented COMPLETELY UNIRONICALLY because this was 1972, as in, "Here's this neat trick that you'll want to know about." And my reaction was, "WTFF, why???" and also, "That can't possibly work, either." Not having any actual computers to play with yet, that was that for a while. Some years later, I got to college and had my first actual programming course... 6/n

Open ##563442