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B came from BCPL which came from CPL which came from ALGOL 60. The main thing about ALGOL was structured programming as opposed to goto statements. Compared to

B came from BCPL which came from CPL which came from ALGOL 60. The main thing about ALGOL was structured programming as opposed to goto statements. Compared to that begin/end vs braces is a very minor issue.

musicale 2y ago
Indeed. And they're all algol descendants as you note. But there is certainly a difference between c-like syntax (java, javascript...) vs. algol-like syntax (pascal, ada, ...)
pjmlp 2y ago
And BCPL means Bootstraping CPL, it was never intended to anything beyond bootstraping the CPL compiler that never came to be, as the project folded.
- fanf2 2y ago
  No, BCPL was Basic CPL. BCPL was created in 1967 after the CPL project ground to a halt in 1966, based on the subset of CPL used in the CPL compiler.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Apparently everyone is wrong on Internet. > BCPL has been rumored to have originally stood for "Bootstrap Cambridge Programming Language", but CPL was never created since development stopped at BCPL, and the acronym was later reinterpreted for the BCPL book. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCPL https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCPL
    - fanf2 2y ago
      I have seen no evidence of this in papers by Martin Richards, including the earliest BCPL manual or the contemporary papers on CPL by Strachey et al. The descriptions of how the CPL compiler worked (eg Strachey’s paper on GPM, Richards more recent retrospectives) all talk about writing the compiler in CPL and translating it by hand to macro assembly. I have not yet managed to look at Richards PhD thesis which contains the first draft description of BCPL, which he sketched after working on the CPL compiler and shortly before moving to MIT where he first implemented BCPL.
pmcjones 2y ago
For a look at how BCPL developed (by being easily ported to new machines), see: https://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/BCPL https://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/BCPL
- kjs3 2y ago
  I always thought BCPL would have been a great language for 80s era micros. Fortunately, we had Turbo Pascal.
  - pmcjones 2y ago
    But C was better because it incorporated byte addressing (BCPL was based on word addresses).
    - kjs3 2y ago
      Except the contemporary C compilers were uniformly terrible.

musicale 2y ago

Indeed. And they're all algol descendants as you note. But there is certainly a difference between c-like syntax (java, javascript...) vs. algol-like syntax (pascal, ada, ...)

pjmlp 2y ago

And BCPL means Bootstraping CPL, it was never intended to anything beyond bootstraping the CPL compiler that never came to be, as the project folded.

fanf2 2y ago
No, BCPL was Basic CPL. BCPL was created in 1967 after the CPL project ground to a halt in 1966, based on the subset of CPL used in the CPL compiler.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  Apparently everyone is wrong on Internet. > BCPL has been rumored to have originally stood for "Bootstrap Cambridge Programming Language", but CPL was never created since development stopped at BCPL, and the acronym was later reinterpreted for the BCPL book. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCPL https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCPL
  - fanf2 2y ago
    I have seen no evidence of this in papers by Martin Richards, including the earliest BCPL manual or the contemporary papers on CPL by Strachey et al. The descriptions of how the CPL compiler worked (eg Strachey’s paper on GPM, Richards more recent retrospectives) all talk about writing the compiler in CPL and translating it by hand to macro assembly. I have not yet managed to look at Richards PhD thesis which contains the first draft description of BCPL, which he sketched after working on the CPL compiler and shortly before moving to MIT where he first implemented BCPL.

pmcjones 2y ago

For a look at how BCPL developed (by being easily ported to new machines), see: https://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/BCPL https://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/BCPL

kjs3 2y ago
I always thought BCPL would have been a great language for 80s era micros. Fortunately, we had Turbo Pascal.
- pmcjones 2y ago
  But C was better because it incorporated byte addressing (BCPL was based on word addresses).
  - kjs3 2y ago
    Except the contemporary C compilers were uniformly terrible.