ALGOL 58

ALGOL 58, originally named IAL, is one of the family of ALGOL computer programming languages. It was an early compromise design soon superseded by ALGOL 60. According to John Backus The Zurich ACM-GAMM Conference had two principal motives in proposing the IAL: (a) To provide a means of communicating numerical methods and other procedures between people, and (b) To provide a means of realizing a stated process on a variety of machines... ALGOL 58 introduced the fundamental notion of the compound statement, but it was restricted to control flow only, and it was not tied to identifier scope in the way that Algol 60's blocks were. Bauer attributes the name to Hermann Bottenbruch, who coined the term algorithmic language (algorithmische Sprache) in 1957, "at least in Germany". There were proposals for a universal language by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and also by the German Gesellschaft für Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik ("Society of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics") (GAMM). It was decided to organize a joint meeting to combine them. The meeting took place from May 27 to June 2, 1958, at ETH Zurich and was attended by the following people: Friedrich L. Bauer, Hermann Bottenbruch, Heinz Rutishauser, and Klaus Samelson (from the GAMM) John Backus, Charles Katz, Alan Perlis, and Joseph Henry Wegstein (from the ACM). The language was originally proposed to be called IAL (International Algebraic Language) but according to Perlis, this was rejected as an "'unspeakable' and pompous acronym". ALGOL was suggested instead, though not officially adopted until a year later. The publication following the meeting still used the name IAL. By the end of 1958 the ZMMD-group had built a working ALGOL 58 compiler for the Z22 computer. ZMMD was an abbreviation for Zürich (where Rutishauser worked), München (workplace of Bauer and Samelson), Mainz (location of the Z22 computer), Darmstadt (workplace of Bottenbruch). ALGOL 58 saw some implementation effort at IBM, but the effort was in competition with FORTRAN, and soon abandoned.