3 ms·
> From the article: Articles, like desserts, aren't always right. I am sorely tempted to pull out Sammet's book tonight and start counting.
by kps 9y ago
> From the article:
Articles, like desserts, aren't always right. I am sorely tempted to pull out Sammet's book tonight and start counting.
- kps 9y agoToo late to edit, but I've gone and done it: scanned through Sammet's Programming Languages: History and Fundamentals for languages with identifiable assignment statements. I skip assembly-style, English-like (COBOL etc.), and functional-style (LISP etc.) syntax, and for summary purposes ignore accompanying keywords like BASIC's LET. Results: ν = ε 18 (AMTRAN, BASIC, COLASL, CPS, FORTRAN, FORTRANSIT, JOSS, JOVIAL, Klerer-May, Laning & Zierler, MAD, MADCAP, MAP, MATH-MATIC, MIRFAC, PL/I, QUICKTRAN, UNICODE) ν ← ε 4 (APL, DIALOG, IT, LISP2) ε → ν 2 (MADCAP, NELIAC) ν := ε 1 (ALGOL) ε * ν 1 (BACIAC) So pretty much everybody used ‘=’. ALGOL was an outlier, though admittedly more influential than BACIAC.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]