16 Jun
2026
16 Jun
'26
9:09 p.m.
On Tue, 2026-06-16 at 21:31 -0500, Mike Katz via cctalk wrote:
I'm sure there are more "dead" computer
languages than there are
living
ones.
Jean Sammet published a "Roster of Programming Languages" in November
1970 "Computers and Automation," listing 165 languages. Only about 15
remain in use. The best-known and most widely still-used survivors are
Fortran, Cobol, Lisp, Basic, APL, PL/1, and Simula.
JOVIAL code is still maintained because it's deeply embedded in weapon
systems, but apparently no new JOVIAL code is being developed.
SNOBOL and COMIT apparently didn't actually survive, but I'm sure
there's somebody on this list who is actually using one or the other or
both.
Anybody remember SPITBOL?