HT de Beer
August 2006
download the whole history of the ALGOL effort as a pdf file (1.1 megabytes)
The potential of ALGOL 60 became clear during the implementation phase in the early 1960s: the ALGOL effort was a catalyst, transforming the field of translator writing from craftsmanship into a science. This transformation started with the development and publication of a translation technique for IAL by Bauer and Samelson. They were the initiators of the ALGOL effort and started with the construction of both a language and translation technique. Although their technique was known and developed by many other computer scientists, it was the publication of their technique that made it so important.
The language was made to fit the technique, and vice versa. When Bauer and Samelson, some months before the ALGOL 60 was created, published their technique, their article became widely read. And, because of the popularity of ALGOL 60, the implementation of many translators was being started, many based upon the technique described by Bauer and Samelson. During this process, the isolated nature of efforts to create an algebraic language was finally broken: publication and referring to publications became the norm.
Although there was a translation technique for IAL, to translate ALGOL 60, the technique had to be extended. These extensions fitted into the well known translation technique. Other approaches to the translation of ALGOL were improving the technique and inventing new techniques: syntax directed translation techniques. A new technique was invented based on the structure of ALGOL. From left to right, from bottom to top, this technique was based on a metalanguage in which both syntax and semantics were to be specified. A general translator was then able, with these specifications and a program text, to translate the program into a executable version.
Although these approaches were different, the lack of a common notation, terminology, or theory was striking. Clearly, the field missed a sound theory to be able to evolve from a craft into a science. Ginsburg and Rice supplied the field with a theory: they created the connection between Chomsky's context-free languages and ALGOL-like languages and hence connected the field of programming languages with other theories of computing and automata theory. With that, computer science received its own theoretical component.
The further development of the field of translator writing, although related to ALGOL at first, was no longer ALGOL centred. It became an active field of research, evolving independently from the ALGOL effort.