Algol


 * ALGOL** (short for **ALGO**rithmic Language) was developed jointly by a committee of European and American computer scientists in a meeting in 1958 at ETH Zurich. It specified three different syntaxes: reference syntax, publication syntax, and implementation syntax. The different syntaxes permitted it to use different keyword names and conventions for decimal points (commas vs. periods) for different languages.


 * ALGOL** was used mostly by research computer scientists in the United States and in Europe. Its use in commercial applications was hindered by the absence of standard input/output facilities in its description and the lack of interest in the language by large computer vendors. **ALGOL** 60 did however become the standard for the publication of algorithms and had a profound effect on future language development.

Although the use of **ALGOL** has halted, the use of its language has had an astounding effect on the programming languages we still use today. As quoted, Tony Hoare remarked: "Here is a language so far ahead of its time that it was not only an improvement on its predecessors but also on nearly all its successors."

An example of **ALGOL**:

BEGIN FILE F(KIND=REMOTE); EBCDIC ARRAY E[0:11]; REPLACE E BY "HELLO WORLD!"; WRITE(F, *, E); END.