On the Design of Programming Languages (1974) [pdf]

(cs.ucdavis.edu)

43 points | by jruohonen 3 days ago

1 comments

  • palad1n 1 hour ago
    I think the legend goes Wirth created the Pascal language to be the most easily compilable. To show my age, I recall a class used Modula-2 when I was in college, also from Wirth, very Pascal-like.
    • pjmlp 7 minutes ago
      Nowadays you can enjoy it on GCC, as it is now an officially supported frontend, after GNU Modula-2 got merged into it.

      https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-15.2.0/gm2

      Even available on compiler explorer to play with, https://godbolt.org/z/ev9Pbxn9K

      Yes, that was a common trend across all programming languages designed by him.

      That is also how P-Code came to be, he didn't want to create a VM for Pascal, rather the goal was to make porting easier, by requiring only a basic P-Code interpreter, it was very easy to port Pascal, a design approach he kept for Modula-2 (M-Code) and Oberon (Slim binaries).

    • zabzonk 41 minutes ago
      > most easily compilable

      I think it was more that it would be easy to write a compiler for, which meant that CS students could write one. Don't have a source for this that I can remember, though.