Break-even Point N.
In The Process Of Implementing A New
Computer Language, The Point At Which The Language Is Sufficiently
Effective That One Can Implement The Language In Itself.
In the process of implementing a new
computer language, the point at which the language is sufficiently
effective that one can implement the language in itself. That is,
for a new language called, hypothetically, FOOGOL, one has reached
break-even when one can write a demonstration compiler for FOOGOL
in FOOGOL, discard the original implementation language, and
thereafter use working versions of FOOGOL to develop newer ones.
This is an important milestone; see MFTL.
Since this entry was first written, several correspondents have
reported that there actually was a compiler for a tiny Algol-like
language called Foogol floating around on various VAXen in the
early and mid-1980s. A FOOGOL implementation is available at the
Retrocomputing Museum http://www.ccil.org/retro.
Pascal n.
An Algol-descended language designed by
Niklaus Wirth on the CDC 6600 around 1967-68 as an instructional
tool for elementary programming. This language, designed primarily
to keep students from shooting themselves in the foot and thus
extremely restrictive from a general-purpose-programming point of
view, was later promoted as a general-purpose tool and, in fact,
became the ancestor of a large family of languages including
Modula-2 and Ada (see also bondage-and-discipline l
summed up by a devastating (and, in its deadpan way, screamingly
funny) 1981 paper by Brian Kernighan (of K&...
