HT de Beer
August 2006
download the whole history of the ALGOL effort as a pdf file (1.1 megabytes)
In the late 1950s, the need for a universal algorithmic programming language was felt. In Central Europe, a GAMM subcommittee was founded to create an algebraic language and during the development of this language the ACM in the USA was contacted. It was decided that both the GAMM subcommittee and the newly formed ACM subcommittee would create a proposal for an algorithmic language. At the Zürich meeting in 1958, both subcommittees met and they drew up a proposal for an international algebraic language: IAL.
Two questions were asked: why was there a need for a universal algorithmic language and why did it have to be IAL and not some of the already existing languages? First of all, in the USA, the field of computing became an industry in the 1950s. Computers were sold to and used by many corporations, research centres and the government. In this commercial atmosphere, using problem-oriented programming languages, like algorithmic languages or data-processing languages was needed to make profitable the use of the expensive computing machines.
These programming languages, or automatic coding systems, did have a bad name: it was believed that they were fundamentally inefficient. The FORTRAN programming system, however, proved the opposite as FORTRAN programs were efficient, although not as efficient as hand-coded programs. Problem-oriented languages were seen as a necessity and many research groups and computer companies started creating these languages for both internal use and as part of the commercial computer systems that they were selling. Unfortunately, this development resulted in the creation of many similar, but different algorithmic programming languages. In this context the cry for a universal algorithmic programming language became louder.
In Europe, the situation was totally different. The field of computing was emerging and the first larger computers were being built. The main application for these machines was scientific computing. Instructing these computers was a difficult and error prone task. To solve this problem, work was started on formula translation and eventually on an algorithmic language in the GAMM subcommittee. Instead of creating yet another algorithmic language, the members of the subcommittee proposed to jointly create one international algebraic language to the ACM.
The Americans did not base their proposal on an already existing language. IT and MATH-MATIC were not sufficient or well known. FORTRAN, on the other hand, was well known, but the American members of the committee did not want to increase the dominance of IBM. As a result, the ACM subcommittee proposed a new language. The combination of the two proposals resulted in IAL: a new algorithmic language like other algorithmic languages of that time.
This start of the ALGOL effort was important because it created a common goal among computer scientists from the USA and Europe: developing one algorithmic language. Creating one universal algorithmic language became part of the agenda of computer science.0 This may not sound important, but in an emerging field, as was the case with computer science, it meant more coherence. It meant that computer scientists could identify themselves, both to each other and to the outer world, as workers in computer science.
To enable this international development, however, communication between scientists was necessary. Although they had meetings dedicated to their common goal, communication on programming languages between different groups and people with different backgrounds appeared difficult: a sufficient notation to describe and discuss programming languages was lacking.0 As believed necessary for the establishment of a scientific field by Mahoney in: Ma- honey, ‘Computer Science. The Search for a Mathematical Theory’