Douglas Seay wrote:
>
> <snip> This m ight be
> ancient history, but was there a formal specification of COBOL, FORTRAN
> or APL before the first implementation?]
Define "formal" definition. Many of the "formal" techniques, BNF, VDM,
Z, etc., were not available at that time, but even now only BNF or EBNF
can really be considered to be commonly used for the definition of
languages. As BNF and EBNF only allow for the definition of the context
free syntax and languages require a context dependent semantics very few
languages have a true "formal" specification. I suspect your question
"was there a formal specification of ..." really whould be posed as "but
was there a written specification in sufficient detail to serve as a
language definition of ..."
Cobol was defined in detail by a committee (CODASYL? 1960) well before
the first implementation. (61 or 62) I suspect that almost everyone
would consider it as having had a written language definition before its
implementation.
A significant fraction of what became APL was defined in Iverson's text,
"A Programming Language" (1961?) well before the first implementation,
(1964?) but would probably be best described as defined in terms of its
initial implementation.
Fortran underwent a significant evolution between Backus's initial
proposal (1953) and its release (1956) and so its implementation served
as its initial definition.
> <snip>
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William B. Clodius Phone: (505)-665-9370
Los Alamos Nat. Lab., NIS-2 FAX: (505)-667-3815
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