On Thursday, November 22, 2018 at 7:29:57 AM UTC-8, Derek M. Jones wrote:

I'm looking for PhD thesis or books covering the history of
popular, or once popular languages (not edited
collections of papers on different languages).

There is the "Handbook of Programming Languages", which is a four
volume set edited by Peter Salus.

Chapters are written by different people, but they are written as
chapters, not journal articles or conference papers.
(Though at some point there is overlap between them.)

The four volumes are:

I. Object-Oriented Programming Languages
II. Imperative Programming Languages
III. Little Languages and Tools
IV. Functional and Logic Programming Languages

This is from about 1998, which you might take into account, depending
on your idea of history.

They might be available used for low prices, depending on how many
people read this and rush out to buy them.

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gah,

There is the "Handbook of Programming Languages", which is a four
volume set edited by Peter Salus.

Thanks. Lots of second hand copies of volume II, Imperative
languages.

There are the HOPL conference talks, of which the evolution of
Lisp paper is by far the best:
www.dreamsongs.com/Files/HOPL2-Uncut.pdf

--
Derek M. Jones
blog:shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com
[At archive.org there are semi-legal scans of all four volumes
you can check out and read. -John]

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On Thursday, November 22, 2018 at 7:29:57 AM UTC-8, Derek M. Jones wrote:

I'm looking for PhD thesis or books covering the history of
popular, or once popular languages (not edited
collections of papers on different languages).

Another book that you might be interested in is:

"Programming Language Standardization"

edited by I.D. Hill and B.L.Meek.

It is less about language history, and more about standardization,
but with individual languages in the explanations.

It seems to be usual for a language to be in common use before
anyone gets around to writing a standard. That complicates the
process.

But the process of standardization is connected to the history,
and much of that history comes through. There are chapters on
Fortran, COBOL, ALGOL 60, PL/I, BASIC, PASCAL as specific examples,
and some more general categories, such as data base management
and OS command languages.

Chapters are written by different people, but in book style,
not journal article style.

[It was published by Ellis Harwood in 1980, long out of print, but in a fair number of academic libraries. -John]

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gah4,

Another book that you might be interested in is:

"Programming Language Standardization"

^
s

Amazon does not find it with the z spelling [see below -John]

There was an update in the September 1994 issue of
Computer Standards & Interfaces, devoted to programming
language standards.
I have a copy, but only because I wrote the C article.

It seems to be usual for a language to be in common use before
anyone gets around to writing a standard. That complicates the
process.

I'm not sure that can be said for Modula-2, whose fans thought it
was not popular yet because it did not have an ISO standard.

Chapters are written by different people, but in book style,
not journal article style.

My copy of "Handbook of Programming languages vol 1, object-oriented programming" has arrived, all 2.5 inches of thickness.

It's chapters are really extended marketing pieces by someone
involved in the language design.

[It was published by Ellis Harwood in 1980, long out of print, but in a fair number of academic libraries. -John]

Amazon lists a copy for £2.95.

It's surprising that nobody has written a PhD on Cobol or Fortran.
I'm sure it will happen eventually.

--
Derek M. Jones
blog:shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com
[Amazon US doesn't find it with either spelling, Amazon UK finds three
copies including one in the US. US library catalogs finds it spelled
with a z. I've asked my library to borrow a copy for me. -John]

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On Sun, 8 Mar 2020 21:36:31 +0000, "Derek M. Jones" <derek@_NOSPAM_knosof.co.uk> wrote:

It seems to be usual for a language to be in common use before
anyone gets around to writing a standard. That complicates the
process.

I'm not sure that can be said for Modula-2, whose fans thought it
was not popular yet because it did not have an ISO standard.

??? C was in use for 17 years before its standard appeared. Modula-2
took 18 years, but that is directly comparable ... the committees move
at the speed of frozen molasses.


No the problem lay elsewhere: IMO Modula-2 had a number of things
working against it right from the beginning.

Modula-2 was introduced in 1977, but few people knew anything about it
until Byte magazine devoted an edition to it in 1984. By that time,
OOP was catching on everywhere and Modula-2 had to compete with both
Object Pascal and "C with Objects" (what became C++). But Modula-2
was not OO and did not easily support it. Modula-2 was an alternative
to C and Pascal, but not to C++ or Object Pascal.

And many Pascal programmers who might have switched to Modula-2 didn't
like its uppercase keywords. The addition of compiler switches to
permit lowercase was only partly successful: for some time there were
issues mixing modules that were compiled differently.

Note that N.Wirth collaborated on the development of Object Pascal, so
it seems that he was well aware of the OO movement and that Modula-2
was intended for a different audience ... one that unfortunately never materialized.


Modula-3 (which was from DEC-Olivetti, not N.Wirth) was a good
alternative to both C++ and Object Pascal, but it arrived too late to
make a difference.

YMMV,
George
[Having a standard is no guarantee of success. Anyone here still
use Dibol? INCITS 165-1992[S2007] -John]

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