[SC] Contributing the Algol 68 Front-End to GCC.

[Toon Moene]

On 10/22/25 21:47, Paul Koning via Gcc wrote:

>> On Oct 22, 2025, at 3:37 PM, carl hansen via Gcc <gcc@gcc.gnu.org> wrote:
>>
>> Consider GNU Pascal  https://gnu-pascal.de https://github.com/hebisch/gpc
>>
>> Only configured to compile with gcc 2, 3, 4. (if at all) Would be good
>> to get into gcc 16.  Should be doable.  It's a puzzle I haven't spent
>> the time to make it happen, if anyone else moves in that direction, great.
>>
>> Pascal is historically important, the hot language in the early 1980s.
>> For instance, the first Macintosh os, Adobe products. TeX. The language of
>> "Advanced Placement" exams in high shchool. If my historical knowledge is
>> correct N. Wirth was on the Algol committee, and thought "I can do better",
>> came up with pascal, and later Modula-2, already in gcc....
> 
> I think Wirth (along with Dijkstra) was among the ALGOL 60 leaders who dissented from the direction ALGOL 68 was taking.
> 
> Speaking of historically important, I agree about Pascal, and also Algol 68, but clearly that principle applies even more strongly for Algol 60.  I wonder how hard that would be.  Simpler than Pascal or Modula, certainly.

Given the what the "terms of engagement" for the this gcc mailing list are:

"Is a high volume list for general development discussions about GCC. 
Anything relevant to the development or testing of GCC and not covered 
by other mailing lists is suitable for discussion here."

this discussion here is even more relevant then the discussion on the 
mailing list of the Steering Committee (full disclosure: I am a member 
of that committee).

These are the languages that are built into gcc as distributed by the 
Debian Linux distribution:

--enable-languages=c,ada,c++,go,d,fortran,objc,obj-c++,m2,rust,cobol,algol68

There are several reasons to consider a language front end (plus support 
libraries) suitable for inclusion into the GNU Compiler Collection 
(apart from C and C++ which are needed to build the compiler and its 
support libraries):

1. It is a highly popular, well documented (i.e. ISO internationally
    standardized) language. Fortran and Cobol are well standardized, but
    one could discuss their "popularity". Python is highly popular, but
    certainly not "ISO internationally standardized". It also doesn't
    have a candidate front end, but "if you build it, they will come".

2. It is well maintained: There is a group of people who regularly work
    on fixing bugs and prepare updates to follow the regular succession
    of new ISO standards (Fortran, Ada, Cobol).

Then there are the more "experimental" modes:

3. A very active maintainer who has been a regular contributor to GCC
    for decades with a solid product but not a large language popularity:
    Modula-2.

4. An upcoming paradigm shifting entry needs support from the GCC
    infrastructure (Rust).

5. And then there's Algol 68. I love the way the Algol 68 committee did
    their work (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algol_68) and I think it is
    useful as an example of what a programming language could be.
    Whether that's sufficient for inclusion is left to the reader.

Kind regards,

-- 
Toon Moene - e-mail: toon@moene.org - phone: +31 346 214290
Saturnushof 14, 3738 XG  Maartensdijk, The Netherlands