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Re: [ontolog-forum] IBM Watson's Final Jeopardy error "explanation"

To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2011 23:18:27 -0500
Message-id: <4D5DF313.1060408@xxxxxxxxxxx>
On 2/17/2011 10:43 PM, Chris Menzel wrote:
> I've always understood the 58 in Algol 58 to indicate the year of its
> origin, which would be a couple years after IPL, but I'm no historian.
> The bit of checking I've done suggests this is correct.    (01)

 From the _History of Programming Languages_, edited by Wexelblat,    (02)

p. 174, McCarthy wrote:  "During the meeting [at Dartmouth in 1956],
Newell, Shaw, and Simon described IPL 2, a list processing language
for RAND Corporation's JOHNNIAC computer."    (03)

At that meeting, plans for a new programming language were being
discussed, and Nat Rochester from IBM made sure that an IBM 704
would be available to run it.    (04)

That same book says that the specifications for Algol 58 weren't
actually implemented until later by various groups that adopted
different names for their versions -- MAD, JOVIAL, NELLIAC.    (05)

The Algol 58 spec's didn't require recursion, nor did they
prohibit recursion.  The Algol 60 spec's did require recursion.    (06)

John    (07)




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