Talk:S-algol

First orthogonally persitant?

It seems unlikely that PS-algol was the first orthogonally persistent language. MUMPS is orthogonally persistent, and has been in use since the late 1960s, over ten years longer than PS-algol. Unless it is claimed that early versions of MUMPS lacked the persistence feature? I don't know, but I would be surprised if that were the case as it is such a fundamental feature of MUMPS. -- 202.63.39.58 (talk) 06:36, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

I have deleted this part and uncommented:

"It is considered to be the first programming language to support orthogonal persistence. -- Sure about this? Didn't Lisp/Smalltalk provide image-based persistence long before? --"

MATHLAB (1964) also has persistance, so many languages have has this feature prior to S-algol. Macaldo (talk) 20:26, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

I believe that the claim is not that PS-algol in the first language to support persistence but to support "orthogonal persistence" - that is persistence where the programmer can treat any data type the same irrespective of the lifetime of the data. The language therefore supports making procedures, and complex data structures with sharing, outlive the program that created them. Bizlib247 (talk) 12:30, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

MUMPS certainly supports persistence. It does not have "orthogonal persistence", as defined by Malcolm Atkinson in 1978 as in MUMPS the distinction between data that is temporary and data that persists after a program terminates is explicit in the program. Perhaps it would be better to clarify that orthogonal persistence generalised the persistence features from existing languages. Bizlib247 (talk) 12:42, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Remove content largely sourced to thesis

I don't think it's necessary to describe details about the language that are only in Morrison's thesis. Obviously the treatment of the language there is rigorous, but in general we should not host large sections of information that can only be attributed to primary sources. Since Morrison created the language, his thesis is a primary source. If there is no objection after a week or so, I will go forward with this. If you have an objection, please explain it here. Thanks. HyperAccelerated (talk) 03:21, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

"... in general we should not ...". Please explain specifically (not in general) how your proposed removal would 1) improve this article, and 2) improve the encyclopedia. The article is not long and is unlikely to grow as the language is of historical interest only. I don't see how removing cited detail would be an improvement. I am puzzled by the large number of editors who insist relevant and cited material should be removed from articles. Quale (talk) 08:08, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

My point is that the citation to most of these details is entirely to Morrison's thesis. I'm happy to keep anything that secondary sources cover, but if the literature hasn't made any remarks about these details, I don't believe it's necessary for Wikipedia to cover as well. HyperAccelerated (talk) 06:38, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

My point is that you have not explained how your removals would improve this article or the encyclopedia. If I remember correctly you have terribly disfigured many articles on programming languages. You're not making the encyclopedia better. Quale (talk) 05:39, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

Remember that Wikipedia articles are never meant to be WP: EXHAUSTIVE. We need not include every detail about the language, including and especially large quantities of content which can only be attributed to primary sources.

I have tried to explain this twice now, but if your response is to complain about my edits not relevant to this discussion, then I frankly have nothing to discuss with you. Have a good day. HyperAccelerated (talk) 05:51, 5 January 2026 (UTC)