ABC (programming language)

Short description: Programming language

ABCParadigms| multi-paradigm: imperative, procedural, structured

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Designed by| Leo Geurts, Lambert Meertens, Steven Pemberton
Developer| Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI)
First appeared| January 1987; 37 years ago (1987-01)
Stable release|

1.05.02 / 1990; 34 years ago (1990)

Typing discipline| strong, polymorphic
OS| Unix-like, Windows, MacOS, and Atari TOS
Influenced by
SETL, ALGOL 68[1]
Influenced
Python

ABC is an imperative general-purpose programming language and integrated development environment (IDE) developed at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), Netherlands by Leo Geurts, Lambert Meertens, and Steven Pemberton.[2] It is interactive, structured, high-level, and intended to be used instead of BASIC, Pascal, or AWK. It is intended for teaching or prototyping, but not as a systems-programming language.

ABC had a major influence on the design of the language Python, developed by Guido van Rossum, who formerly worked for several years on the ABC system in the mid-1980s.[3][4]

## Contents

* 1 Features
* 2 Example
* 3 References
* 4 External links

## Features

Its designers claim that ABC programs are typically around a quarter the size of the equivalent Pascal or C programs, and more readable.[5] Key features include:

* Only five basic data types
* No required variable declarations
* Explicit support for top-down programming
* Statement nesting is indicated by indentation, via the off-side rule
* Infinite precision arithmetic, unlimited-sized lists and strings, and other features supporting orthogonality and ease of use by novices

ABC was originally a monolithic implementation, leading to an inability to adapt to new requirements, such as creating a graphical user interface (GUI). ABC could not directly access the underlying file system and operating system.

The full ABC system includes a programming environment with a structure editor (syntax-directed editor), suggestions, static variables (persistent), and multiple workspaces, and is available as an interpreter–compiler. (As of 2020), the latest version is 1.05.02, and it is ported to Unix, DOS, Atari, and Apple MacOS.

## Example

An example function to collect the set of all `words` in a document:

HOW TO RETURN words document:
PUT {} IN collection
FOR line IN document:
FOR word IN split line:
IF word not.in collection:
INSERT word IN collection
RETURN collection

## References

1. ↑ Biancuzzi, Federico; Warden, Shane (April 2009). Masterminds of Programming: Conversations with the Creators of Major Programming Languages. O'Reilly Media. p. 32. ISBN 978-0-596-51517-1. https://books.google.com/books?q=He-was-clearly-influenced-by-ALGOL-68. Retrieved December 14, 2009. "He [Lambert Meertens] was clearly influenced by ALGOL 68's philosophy of providing constructs that can be combined in many different ways to produce all sorts of different data structures or ways of structuring a program. – Guido van Rossum"
2. ↑ Pemberton, Steven (January 1987). "An Alternative Simple Language and Environment for PCs". IEEE Software 4 (1): 56–64. doi:10.1109/MS.1987.229797.
3. ↑ Hamilton, Naomi (2008-05-08). "The A-Z of Programming Languages: Python". Computerworld (IDG Communications). http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;66665771. Retrieved 2020-09-04. "... I figured I could design and implement a language 'almost, but not quite, entirely unlike' ABC, improving upon ABC's deficiencies, ...".
4. ↑ Stewart, Bruce (2002-06-04). "An Interview with Guido van Rossum". O’Reilly Media. http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/python/2002/06/04/guido.html. "... in my head I had analyzed some of the reasons it had failed."
5. ↑ Pemberton, Steven (2012-02-22). "The ABC Programming Language: a short introduction". https://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/abc/.

## External links

* ABC Programmer's Handbook

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