Path: csiph.com!xmission!weretis.net!feeder6.news.weretis.net!news.misty.com!news.iecc.com!.POSTED.news.iecc.com!nerds-end From: "Luke A. Guest" Newsgroups: comp.compilers Subject: Re: Which comes first, languages or compilers? Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2023 16:57:50 +0100 Organization: Compilers Central Sender: johnl%iecc.com Approved: comp.compilers@iecc.com Message-ID: <23-10-011@comp.compilers> References: <23-10-008@comp.compilers> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Injection-Info: gal.iecc.com; posting-host="news.iecc.com:2001:470:1f07:1126:0:676f:7373:6970"; logging-data="9462"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@iecc.com" Keywords: design, history Posted-Date: 29 Oct 2023 13:47:41 EDT X-submission-address: compilers@iecc.com X-moderator-address: compilers-request@iecc.com X-FAQ-and-archives: http://compilers.iecc.com In-Reply-To: <23-10-008@comp.compilers> Xref: csiph.com comp.compilers:3538 On 25/10/2023 20:39, gah4 wrote: > Not from a Quora question, but one did remind me. > > Which (well known) languages were mostly defined before the first > compiler was written? (Not counting the one you did for a homework > assignment.) ... > [COBOL, Algol60 and 68, Ada. Maybe Pascal? -John] You can definitely count Ada as being defined before being implemented. You can find the various language designs put forward by looking for "common hol phase 1" in this group. I don't really consider any of Wirth's languages to be designed as they would not have the gaping big holes they have. Aiming to having short specifications is not really a good thing, but it comes across as half-arsed and you end up leaving a metric shit-ton of "undefined" things that should've been defined up to the implementor, creating "implementation defined" and incompatible variants, see Pascal, Modula-2 and Oberon and their variants.