From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 22831 invoked by alias); 7 May 2002 13:57:56 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gcc-help@gcc.gnu.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: Sender: gcc-owner@gcc.gnu.org Received: (qmail 22799 invoked from network); 7 May 2002 13:57:53 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO fencepost.gnu.org) (199.232.76.164) by sources.redhat.com with SMTP; 7 May 2002 13:57:53 -0000 Received: from cygnus.equallogic.com ([65.170.102.10]) by fencepost.gnu.org with smtp (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 1755TV-0001iw-00 for ; Tue, 07 May 2002 09:57:53 -0400 Received: from cygnus.equallogic.com (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by cygnus.equallogic.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g47DvqM01900 for ; Tue, 7 May 2002 09:57:52 -0400 Received: from deneb.dev.equallogic.com (deneb.dev.equallogic.com [172.16.1.99]) by cygnus.equallogic.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g47DvqX01891; Tue, 7 May 2002 09:57:52 -0400 Received: from PKONING.equallogic.com (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by deneb.dev.equallogic.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g47DvoH00339; Tue, 7 May 2002 09:57:51 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <15575.56673.296000.511675@gargle.gargle.HOWL> Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 07:02:00 -0000 From: Paul Koning To: tstratton@ameriscan.org Cc: gcc@gnu.org Subject: Re: Algol Front End References: X-SW-Source: 2002-05/txt/msg00470.txt.bz2 Excerpt of message (sent 6 May 2002) by Tony Stratton: > I am interested in doing a front end project for one of the following languages list on your project page. > Algol 60, Algol 68, PL/I, Cobol, Fortran 90, Delphi, Modula 2, Modula 3, RPG, > > I am leaning toward Algol 60 and/or 68, but I will not start before I hear from you. If you can help me find a "definitive" reference on either Algol version, I can start. Algol 60 is a rather small and very clean language. Bob Dewar said "probably > C" -- I would say smaller than C and certainly easier. That would make a good starting point. The reference is the "Revised Report on Algol 60 (Backus, Naur, et al., 1962 or thereabouts) One problem with Algol 60 is that the standard has NO I/O at all. Various implementations have done their own extensions for this, in very different ways. There's the collections of procedures approach in the THE implementation, and the vaguely Fortran-like one in Burroughs Algol. Algol 68 by contrast is a large and complex language -- still not as nasty as PL/I but way above C and Pascal. The rigorous reference is the Revised Report; a very good starting point is the Informal Introduction (revised edition). Also, if you can get your hands on the original Algol 68 Report (not the Revised one) that may help; its formal description is slightly easier to cope with at first if you're only going about half-way into the depths of the definition. Then you can switch to the Revised Report, that's the cleaned-up version of the language. paul