Earlier quoted context omitted.
very hot and edgy take: theoretical CS is vastly overrated and useless. as someone who actively studied the field, worked on contemporary CPU archs and still doing some casual PL research - asides from VERY FEW instances from theoretical CS about graphs/algos there is little to zero impact on our practical developments in the overall field since 80s. all modern day Dijkstras produce slop research about waving dynamic…
I assume that you are talking about modern "theoretical CS", because among the "theoretical CS" papers from the fifties, sixties, seventies, and even some that are more recent I have found a lot that remain very valuable and I have seen a lot of modern programmers who either make avoidable mistakes or they implement very suboptimal solutions, just because they are no longer aware of ancient research results that were…
On the Design of Programming Languages (1974) [pdf]
41–48 of 48 posts
Re: On the Design of Programming Languages (1974) [pdf]
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nowadays you can enjoy it on GCC, as it is now an officially supported frontend, after GNU Modula-2 got merged into it. https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-15.2.0/gm2 Even available on compiler explorer to play with, https://godbolt.org/z/ev9Pbxn9K Yes, that was a common trend across all programming languages designed by him. That is also how P-Code came to be, he didn't want to create a VM for Pascal, rather the goal…
With all due respect to Wirth, P-Code did not originate in a vacuum. Martin Richards's BCPL compiler, dating from the late 1960s, targeted a hypothetical OCode machine. Furthermore, although there were backends for this that generated good machine code on popular computers of the time, Richards also had a backend that generated a severely reduced instruction set, which he called Intcode. You could write an assembler…
This is interesting!
Would you mind posting links to the relevant papers?
Re: On the Design of Programming Languages (1974) [pdf]
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nowadays you can enjoy it on GCC, as it is now an officially supported frontend, after GNU Modula-2 got merged into it. https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-15.2.0/gm2 Even available on compiler explorer to play with, https://godbolt.org/z/ev9Pbxn9K Yes, that was a common trend across all programming languages designed by him. That is also how P-Code came to be, he didn't want to create a VM for Pascal, rather the goal…
With all due respect to Wirth, P-Code did not originate in a vacuum. Martin Richards's BCPL compiler, dating from the late 1960s, targeted a hypothetical OCode machine. Furthermore, although there were backends for this that generated good machine code on popular computers of the time, Richards also had a backend that generated a severely reduced instruction set, which he called Intcode. You could write an assembler…
With all due respect to Martin Richards, neither did his BCPL, given that bytecodes as idea go back to compilers being developed in 1950's after FORTRAN came to be, and was already part of CPL ideas anyway.
If fact there were all operating systems written with such ideas like Burroughs B5000 in 1961, nowadays still sold by Unisys, and thanks to this approach being easily retargeted to modern hardware.
Why this "who did it first thread?" in first place?
Re: On the Design of Programming Languages (1974) [pdf]
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
With all due respect to Wirth, P-Code did not originate in a vacuum. Martin Richards's BCPL compiler, dating from the late 1960s, targeted a hypothetical OCode machine. Furthermore, although there were backends for this that generated good machine code on popular computers of the time, Richards also had a backend that generated a severely reduced instruction set, which he called Intcode. You could write an assembler…
With all due respect to Martin Richards, neither did his BCPL, given that bytecodes as idea go back to compilers being developed in 1950's after FORTRAN came to be, and was already part of CPL ideas anyway. If fact there were all operating systems written with such ideas like Burroughs B5000 in 1961, nowadays still sold by Unisys, and thanks to this approach being easily retargeted to modern hardware. Why this "who d…
You had commented before I created a new account, so I will just add that I have never seen Wirth claim that he or his colleagues at ETH were the originators of the idea. Moreover, this idea was already used in Wirth’s “first” language, namely Euler, which he published in 1965 while at Stanford. An even earlier example may be Schorre’s META‑II from 1964 (UCLA).
Regarding the popular opinion here that Pascal was created for educational purposes (only) - implicitly meaning not for building real, large-scale software - Wirth considered these two characteristics equivalent, and in his view one was a necessary condition for the other.
From the summary/abstract of his original publication about Pascal (The Programming Language Pascal) written in 1970 and published in Acta Informatica in 1971:
In view of its intended usage both as a convenient basis to teach programming and as an efficient tool to write large programs, emphasis was placed on keeping the number of fundamental concepts reasonably small, on a simple and systematic language structure, and on efficient implementability.
Re: On the Design of Programming Languages (1974) [pdf]
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
With all due respect to Wirth, P-Code did not originate in a vacuum. Martin Richards's BCPL compiler, dating from the late 1960s, targeted a hypothetical OCode machine. Furthermore, although there were backends for this that generated good machine code on popular computers of the time, Richards also had a backend that generated a severely reduced instruction set, which he called Intcode. You could write an assembler…
This is interesting! Would you mind posting links to the relevant papers?
The original paper is probably behind a paywall. But you can have a look at an excerpt (chapter 2) from the book Virtual Machines (2006) by Iain D. Craig.
https://beckassets.blob.core.windows.net/product/readingsamp...
And there's the chapter 7 in the Richard's book (1979): https://archive.org/details/richards1979bcpl/page/n131/mode/...
You will find much more information and references at the software preservation site.
Re: On the Design of Programming Languages (1974) [pdf]
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is interesting! Would you mind posting links to the relevant papers?
The original paper is probably behind a paywall. But you can have a look at an excerpt (chapter 2) from the book Virtual Machines (2006) by Iain D. Craig. https://beckassets.blob.core.windows.net/product/readingsamp... And there's the chapter 7 in the Richard's book (1979): https://archive.org/details/richards1979bcpl/page/n131/mode/... You will find much more information and references at the software preservation s…
Very Nice and Thank You.
Your last link (BCPL history) contains links to a lot of papers (all?) by Martin Richards one of which is (pdf) INTCODE - An Interpretive Machine Code for BCPL which i presume was what "vincent-manis" was referring to in addition to the other papers on BCPL Language/Compiler/Manuals. Seems quite comprehensive, i must say.
We really need to publicize all of Martin Richards' contributions to computer science. He seems to be one of those unsung heroes mentioned everywhere having contributed to Languages/Compilers/VMs/OSes but not that well-known.
From the site;
BCPL—the language and systems built with it—connects the first few generations of computer scientists and software engineers, spanning mainframes to minis to micros. It was driven from the UK, but with a tributary into the heart of US research institutions, where it begat C, the most popular systems programming language of all time.
Re: On the Design of Programming Languages (1974) [pdf]
#47Who are Wirths, Dijkstras, Hoares, McCarthies and Keys of today? I mean - who represents current generation of such thinkers? Genuinely asking. Most stuff I see here and in other places is about blogposts, videos and rants made by contemporary "dev influencers" and bloggers (some of them very skilled and capable of course, very often more than I am), but I would like to be in touch with something more thoughtful and…
Researchers in Programming Languages and Compilers (a large list!) - https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mleone/language-people.html Programming Language Research (categorized by subjects) - https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mleone/language-research.html
Last updated 1996.
Re: On the Design of Programming Languages (1974) [pdf]
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Researchers in Programming Languages and Compilers (a large list!) - https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mleone/language-people.html Programming Language Research (categorized by subjects) - https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mleone/language-research.html
Last updated 1996.
Ah, didn't check that.
Nevertheless, a useful starting page to begin one's research from.
Somebody needs to create a similar list for current times. Maybe the co-author of "Elements of Programming" and preserver of "Software History" artifacts, named Paul McJones would be the right person? ;-)