Details : The history of programming language semantics : an overview

In the 1960s, a full formal description was seen as a crucial and unavoidable part of creating a new programming language. A key part of that was a thorough and rigorous description of the semantics. However, in the decades since, the focus on providing this has somewhat diminished. Why was formal semantics once seen as so critical? Why did it not succeed in the ways hoped? These questions are explored by considering the history of modelbased approaches to describing programming languages, with a particular focus on the IBM Laboratory Vienna under Heinz Zemanek, and the Programming Research Group at Oxford University under Christopher Strachey. It is shown that there were a variety of different approaches to the problem, stemming from the different backgrounds of the people and groups involved. The story of formal language description is in some ways also the story of early programming languages and the integration of mathematics into the emerging new field of computer science, resulting in the formation of theoretical computing in the European style. This paper is the first draft of one that will be submitted for publication in a Johns Hopkins University Press volume. The finished paper is likely to be significantly different to the one here. This note will be updated when bibliographic information is available for the published version. June 2020 Newcastle University. Printed and published by Newcastle University, School of Computing, Urban Sciences Building, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5TG, England. Bibliographical Details: The history of programming language semantics: an overview Title and Authors : Troy K. Astarte NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY School of Computing. Technical Report Series. CS-TR1533 Abstract: In the 1960s, a full formal description was seen as a crucial and unavoidable part of creating a new programming language. A key part of that was a thorough and rigorous description of the semantics. However, in the decades since, the focus on providing this has somewhat diminished. Why was formal semantics once seen as so critical? Why did it not succeed in the ways hoped? These questions are explored by considering the history of model-based approaches to describing programming languages, with a particular focus on the IBM Laboratory Vienna under Heinz Zemanek, and the Programming Research Group at Oxford University under Christopher Strachey. It is shown that there were a variety of different approaches to the problem, stemming from the different backgrounds of the people and groups involved. The story of formal language description is in some ways also the story of early programming languages and the integration of mathematics into the emerging new field of computer science, resulting in the formation of theoretical computing in the European style. This paper is the first draft of one that will be submitted for publication in a Johns Hopkins University Press volume. The finished paper is likely to be significantly different to the one here. This note will be updated when bibliographic information is available for the published version. In the 1960s, a full formal description was seen as a crucial and unavoidable part of creating a new programming language. A key part of that was a thorough and rigorous description of the semantics. However, in the decades since, the focus on providing this has somewhat diminished. Why was formal semantics once seen as so critical? Why did it not succeed in the ways hoped? These questions are explored by considering the history of model-based approaches to describing programming languages, with a particular focus on the IBM Laboratory Vienna under Heinz Zemanek, and the Programming Research Group at Oxford University under Christopher Strachey. It is shown that there were a variety of different approaches to the problem, stemming from the different backgrounds of the people and groups involved. The story of formal language description is in some ways also the story of early programming languages and the integration of mathematics into the emerging new field of computer science, resulting in the formation of theoretical computing in the European style. This paper is the first draft of one that will be submitted for publication in a Johns Hopkins University Press volume. The finished paper is likely to be significantly different to the one here. This note will be updated when bibliographic information is available for the published version. About the authors: Troy Kaighin Astarte is a research assistant in computing science at Newcastle University. Troy's PhD research was on the history of programming language semantics. They are now working on a research project on the history of concurrency in programming and computing systems, funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Suggested keywords: