The 1950s and 1960s saw the development and application of the first HighLevelLanguage''''''s: CobolLanguage, FortranLanguage, LispLanguage and AlgolLanguage. Of these languages, Lisp and Algol proved to be the most influential for the development of further languages. Lisp and Algol followed rather different paradigms, e.g. DynamicTyping vs StaticTyping, DynamicScoping vs LexicalScoping, automatic vs ManualMemoryManagement, incremental/interactive/interpreted development vs batch-compilation, and, of course, syntax. The early implementations/incarnations were specialized to rather different domains of application (roughly, symbolic vs numerical computation) and spawned rather different cultures. Consequently, their close and not so close younger relatives were roughly and rather brutally classified as to belonging to either the LispFamily or the AlgolFamily.

This distinction was obsoleted by the emergence of newer ProgrammingParadigm''''''s and a certain amount of cross-fertilization.
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The pages LexicalScoping, DynamicScoping, StaticTyping, DynamicTyping, GarbageCollection, EssExpressions explain some of the differences between lispish and algolish languages.

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CategoryHistory CategoryProgrammingLanguage