Programming Language Atlas

A structured reference to language families, paradigms, and implementations

ALGOL 60

Imperative, structured. First appeared 1960; c family; algorithm publication, language research.

Record

First appeared1960
FamilyC family
Paradigm emphasisImperative, structured
TypingStatic
MemoryStack-based
ExecutionAOT compiled
Primary domainAlgorithm publication, language research
DesignersALGOL committee
Referencehttps://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/367236.367262
Last verifiednot yet checked against its source by a human

Dates are first public release or publication, not the start of internal development. Colour on the typing and memory tags encodes kind, never rank.

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Influence

Fortran1957BASIC1964Simula 671967Pascal1970C1972Scheme1975Ada1980ALGOL 601960
Figure 1. ALGOL 60 in the influence graph: recorded ancestors on the left, languages that record it as an influence on the right. Every node links to its own record. Edges name indexed languages only, so an empty side means no indexed relative, not none at all. Source: languages.json.

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Within the C family

Curly-brace syntax and an imperative core, descending from ALGOL through C. The tradition most later languages either extend or explicitly react against.

Language First appeared Typing Memory Execution
COBOL 1959 Static, weak Static allocation AOT compiled
Simula 67 1967 Static Tracing GC AOT compiled
Pascal 1970 Static, strong Manual AOT compiled
C 1972 Static, weak Manual AOT compiled
Objective-C 1984 Static core with dynamic dispatch Manual then ARC AOT compiled
C++ 1985 Static, partly weak Manual with RAII AOT compiled
Go 2009 Static, strong Concurrent tracing GC AOT compiled
Dart 2011 Static, strong, sound null safety Generational tracing GC JIT for development, AOT compiled for release

8 other languages in this family, ordered by first appearance. ALGOL 60 itself is omitted. Source: languages.json.

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