3 ms·

I believe it's a joke. Gold isn't a gold-like substance because it is gold. Algol isn't an Algol-like language because it's Algol. If so, I don't believe it's

• dllthomas 10y ago
  It's a joke, but not the one you thought. The joke is that the syntax of Algol didn't actually look all that much like what people mean when they say "Algol-like syntax". No curly braces anywhere to be seen.
  • dalke 10y ago
    As my introduction to Algol-like languages was through Pascal, the joke completely passed me by.
    • dllthomas 10y ago
      I could see that putting you in a place where encountering people misusing "Algol-like" to mean C-like, when trying to distinguish from something more like Algol, would be extra noticeable and annoying. Likely you have just been lucky :)
      • dalke 10y ago
        I hang around computational chemists. They wouldn't say "Algol-like" in the first place. So, double lucky!