15 Feb
2019
15 Feb
'19
6:46 a.m.
On Feb 14, 2019, at 10:08 PM, Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
Almost forgot...
Born on this day in 1934, he pretty much invented ALGOL (and algorithmic languages in
general; the running joke was that you could call him by name or by value)... From Clem
Cole: "The actual joke was Europeans called him by name ("ni-klaus vurt")
and Americans by value ("nickel-less worth").
Niklaus Wirth did come up with Algol-W, based on Algol-60 but he
didn't invent Algol-58 or Algol-60 or Algol-68; though he was on
the IFIP Working Group 2.1 for Algol (IIRC, he thought Algol-68
was overly complicated).
BTW, Niklaus Wirth himself supposedly made this self-referential joke:
“Whereas Europeans generally pronounce my name the right way
(‘Nick-louse Veert’), Americans invariably mangle it into
‘Nickel’s Worth.’ This is to say that Europeans call me by
name, but Americans call me by value.”
[I haven't found a primary source for this but lots of secondary
sources and variations!]