Algol 68 - was AW: AW: Synchronize syntax highlighting

I'll answer your question but suggest to continue this topic in
Usenet (comp.lang.misc) if you're interested in more details.

Von: [email protected] <[email protected]> im Auftrag von [email protected] <[email protected]>
Gesendet: Dienstag, 11. August 2026 21:07
An: [email protected]

> I'm curious to know why anyone is editing Algol 68 code in 2026.

Simply; I'm *editing* it because I am _writing programs_ in Algol 68.

The question was probably meant as why one would write programs
in an old (legacy) language like Algol 68. - The answer is not simple.
In the past 50 years I've programmed in a lot of languages, Algol 68
was amongst the cleanest, yet very powerful, and safe! It was not my
first and certainly not my last language, but other languages with all
these properties were long rare, even non-existing. When I found a
high-quality Algol 68 interpreter lately I was glad to refresh my old
programming skills in a language that was by far more enjoyable to
program in than, say, in "C" (or similar), or in one of the many more
languages (that are sometimes even hyped, for reasons beyond me).

> Are there even functioning compilers available any more?

The "Genie" compiler "a68g" is the one that I found, and used since
then. It's of very high quality (as I said), and effectively a "complete"
implementation of that very large language. In addition it has quite
some powerful extensions (for math, plotting, databases, functions
and methods we know Unix systems, etc.). I think it was developed
in the 1990's and made public (with source code) for free use in the
late 1990's (IIRC). A 700-pages PDF documentation comes with it.
It is still maintained by its original author, Marcel van der Veer, and
releases are still published.

In addition there's a much more recent GNU project to release an
Algol 68 compiler, "ga68", as part of the GNU Compiler Collection.
It's probably too fresh - maybe even incomplete, can't tell - to say
anything about it. But its recent development is an indication that
there seems to be still some interest in the Algol 68 language.

The Vim syntax file is a small contribution to support that interest.

Janis

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