The ''ALGOL Bulletin'' () was a periodical regarding the

ALGOL 60 ALGOL 60 (short for ''Algorithmic Language 1960'') is a member of the ALGOL family of computer programming languages. It followed on from ALGOL 58 which had introduced code blocks and the begin and end pairs for delimiting them, representing a ...

and

ALGOL 68 ALGOL 68 (short for ''Algorithmic Language 1968'') is an imperative programming language member of the ALGOL family that was conceived as a successor to the ALGOL 60 language, designed with the goal of a much wider scope of application and ...

programming languages. It was produced under the auspices of IFIP Working Group 2.1 and published from March 1959 till August 1988. Throughout its run, the periodical produced many influential programming language proposals, while its open-dialogue nature prefigured the modern software development

mailing list A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. Mailing lists are often rented or sold. If rented, the renter agrees to use the mailing list only at contra ...

History

The genesis for ''ALGOL Bulletin'' came in November 1958 at a meeting in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

between 40 representatives from large commercial and academic computing institutions in Europe. Wishing to promogulate knowledge of the

ALGOL ALGOL (; short for "Algorithmic Language") is a family of imperative computer programming languages originally developed in 1958. ALGOL heavily influenced many other languages and was the standard method for algorithm description used by the ...

programming language to the broader computing world, the group discussed starting a newsletter.

Peter Naur Peter Naur (25 October 1928 – 3 January 2016) was a Danish computer science pioneer and 2005 Turing Award winner. He is best remembered as a contributor, with John Backus, to the Backus–Naur form (BNF) notation used in describing the syntax ...

was tasked in February 1959 with editing and circulating the charter issue, which was published the following month, in March 1959. Naur initially published the newsletter out of his work office at

Regnecentralen Regnecentralen (RC) was the first Denmark, Danish computer company, founded on 12 October 1955. Through the 1950s and 1960s, they designed a series of computers, originally for their own use, and later to be sold commercially. Descendants of thes ...

in Copenhagen. Within a year, the ''ALGOL Bulletin'' became the main forum for development of the ALGOL language, circulating across Europe, the United States, and even the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. Per

Jean E. Sammet Jean E. Sammet (March 23, 1928 – May 20, 2017) was an American computer scientist who developed the FORMAC programming language in 1962. She was also one of the developers of the influential COBOL programming language. She received her B.A. ...

, ''ALGOL Bulletin'' remained more popular in Europe, while across the Atlantic the ''

Communications of the ACM ''Communications of the ACM'' (''CACM'') is the monthly journal of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). History It was established in 1958, with Saul Rosen as its first managing editor. It is sent to all ACM members. Articles are i ...

'' was the periodical of choice for most American ALGOL enthusiasts. Publication of the ''ALGOL Bulletin'' was ceased between June 1962 and May 1964, shortly after the IFIP Working Group 2.1 was founded in April 1962 to support and maintain

, the most popular specification of ALGOL. Development of ALGOL heretofore had been largely mediated through informal correspondence in the ''ALGOL Bulletin'', but external pressures to create a standards body such as the IFIP WG 2.1 led to the temporary collapse of the ''ALGOL Bulletin''. The ''ALGOL Bulletin'' was revived in May 1964, operated under the auspices of the IFIP WG 2.1. Duncan Fraser took over as editor of the periodical from Naur. The revived ''ALGOL Bulletin'' was published at irregular intervals until the final issue in August 1988.

References

ALGOL 60 ALGOL 68 Computer science journals Publications established in 1959 Publications disestablished in 1988 {{compu-journal-stub