Reader Contribution

A classmate sent me this link to a talk by Dartmouth professor Dan Rockmore about the past and present of computer algorithms. First watch the professor’s talk: Dartmouth Next . 

As seen, Professor Rockmore begins his discussion by showing how computer algorithms are constructed … referencing the Kemeny-Kurtz computer language BASIC in the process.

Having had Conrad Kurtz as a math professor in college, I disagree slightly that the idea was a substantial leapfrog in computer languages. I still remember how Prof. Kurtz felt that certain instruction in the FORTRAN language … compiler directives, those instructions to that program that translated FORTRAN to machine language … were distractions from the actual algorithm construction … and should disappear. (I don’t know Kemeny’s contribution … I suspect it was mostly administrative, he being the head of the math department.)

That’s what he did with the BASIC language. It essentially is pretty close to a remake of FORTRAN without the compiler directives.

What the kind professor Rockmore did not touch on was the even greater divergence in computer languages which is between procedural languages like BASIC … and non-procedural languages like RPG (Report Generator) and SQL … even EXCEL can be considered as non-procedural.

The major difference between these two approaches is that non-procedural languages are more intuitive and easier to use … natural language if you will … and don’t benefit from the advantage of a Turing machine (which can solve any solvable problem) … see: Turing Machine Explained.

Now, kind reader, I went on from Prof. Kurtz’s class to develop or design 3 non-procedural languages … FFL (First Financial Language) and two versions of MUSE (1972 and 1992) … the last version winning the “MacWeek” software product of the year in 1992.

And, dear reader, if I am still around in a month or two, I do intend to relate some of the lessons learned from my dream of offering such ease-of-use computation to the world.

Thanks Rick for the link.

STAND UP FOR COMPUTERS!