I did some Algol programming back in the late 80s - when it had mostly been obsoleted by Pascal, Modula, and even C for what we called "structured programming"

I did some Algol programming back in the late 80s - when it had mostly been obsoleted by Pascal, Modula, and even C for what we called "structured programming" back then. I remember it as a likeable, economical, expressive language, without significant warts, and which had clearly been influential by being ahead of its time. So my guess is that Hofstadter was just referring to its practical elegance - rather than the more theoretical elegance of Lisp.