HT de Beer
August 2006
download the whole history of the ALGOL effort as a pdf file (1.1 megabytes)
For this research both primary and secondary sources are used. The primary sources are almost all scientific publications. Most of them are articles from the Communications of the ACM and the ALGOL Bulletin related to the ALGOL effort. Using scientific publications as primary sources, in particular shorter articles, has a disadvantage: they were prepared to be published, and they give an academic view on developments in the ALGOL effort.
The ALGOL Bulletin is somewhat different from the other sources because it was edited by one person. The editor's perspective has influenced some of the content. Especially when reporting on institutional matters or when asking questions to the audience the information presented in the ALGOL Bulletin can give a coloured view on historical events in the ALGOL effort.
The secondary sources I have used consisted of historical works on computer science, on programming languages in general, on the ALGOL effort, and on some aspects of the ALGOL effort. Many of these works were written by people involved in the historical subject they wrote about. This gives the reader a special and direct view on the matter. Although the authors try to reflect and try to be as objective as possible, these histories are personal and, hence, subjective.
In this category, the proceedings of the two ACM SIGPLAN conferences on History of Programming Languages are great recourses on the history of the selected programming languages. The papers in these proceedings were written by the people behind those languages and are extremely useful to get an inside view on the early developments of those languages.
Furthermore, F.L. Bauer needs special attention because this German computer scientist has taken up writing history of computer science. Although he writes often about developments where he himself was actively involved in, he is the only source on the topic of early ALGOL translation and the developments leading to the initiation of the ALGOL effort. As a result, his historical works are very useful if they are used with care.
Finally, there are historical papers written on special occasions, like the ACM Turing Award Lectures and anniversaries, wherein the author looks back on his personal involvements in the ALGOL effort and computer science. These articles are interesting because they are able to place other sources in a historical context and give a more anecdotical view on the matter.
Lacking are sources on the use of the ALGOL languages and the reception of the ALGOL effort. The exception is the journal Datamation that, although explicitly American, gives a view on the computing community from a user's perspective in industry. It is, however, not enough to reconstruct a realistic view on the use and reception of ALGOL in Europe or in the USA.