Algol 68
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 94 of 163 programming languages by recommenders
Recommended for its fully bracketed syntax and ideas ahead of its time, and now easy to try through GCC. Critics say it is too complex to implement and its report is hard to build from.
Recommended for its fully bracketed syntax and ideas ahead of its time, and now easy to try through GCC. Critics say it is too complex to implement and its report is hard to build from.
15 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 4
- approval share
- 73%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Fully bracketed syntax
“A better syntax was introduced by ALGOL 68, which is frequently referred to as "fully bracketed syntax".”
Comment from 17 Apr 2026 in “Ada, Its Design, and the Language That Built the Languages” “a good syntax is of the kind usually called "fully bracketed", as popularized by ALGOL 68”
Comment from 19 Mar 2026 in “No Semicolons Needed” “A nice feature of ALGOL 68 that was new at that time was the fully bracketed syntax”
Comment from 13 Mar 2026 in “Dijkstra's Crisis: The End of Algol and Beginning of Software Engineering (2010) [pdf]” Advanced ideas for its time
“The language itself is actually surprisingly nice for its time, very orthogonal and composable.”
Comment from 23 Nov 2025 in “GCC SC approves inclusion of Algol 68 Front End” “A number of mind-boggling ideas (for the time), complexity, an array of kitchen sinks.”
Comment from 23 Nov 2025 in “GCC SC approves inclusion of Algol 68 Front End” “some of them were actually better in ALGOL 68 than in later languages”
Comment from 13 Mar 2026 in “Dijkstra's Crisis: The End of Algol and Beginning of Software Engineering (2010) [pdf]” Better than Pascal and ALGOL W
“ALGOL 68 was much better than the ALGOL W proposed by Wirth, or than its successor, Pascal”
Comment from 13 Mar 2026 in “Dijkstra's Crisis: The End of Algol and Beginning of Software Engineering (2010) [pdf]” “languages like ALGOL 68 and Xerox Mesa, which were languages far superior to Pascal”
Comment from 17 Apr 2026 in “Ada, Its Design, and the Language That Built the Languages”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Too complex to implement
“it was simply too complex to fully implement in a compiler given the limited hardware resources”
Comment from 13 Mar 2026 in “Dijkstra's Crisis: The End of Algol and Beginning of Software Engineering (2010) [pdf]” “A number of mind-boggling ideas (for the time), complexity, an array of kitchen sinks.”
Comment from 23 Nov 2025 in “GCC SC approves inclusion of Algol 68 Front End” “too big and complicated for Unix”
Comment from 6 Feb 2026 in “C Isn't a Language”
Other programming languages people recommend
The four most recommended other programming languages, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 163 programming languages, rankedWhat people said
All 21 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Maybe just Algol68 and Rust can withstand this”
“A better syntax was introduced by ALGOL 68, which is frequently referred to as "fully bracketed syntax".”
“languages like ALGOL 68 and Xerox Mesa, which were languages far superior to Pascal”
“its wonderful "call by name" that you see almost nowhere nowadays”
“a good syntax is of the kind usually called "fully bracketed", as popularized by ALGOL 68”
“the language in the Report is unimplementable, primarily because the lexical syntax is fanciful”
“Algol 68 seems to have perfected the procedural paradigm.”
“A nice feature of ALGOL 68 that was new at that time was the fully bracketed syntax”
“some of them were actually better in ALGOL 68 than in later languages”
“it was simply too complex to fully implement in a compiler given the limited hardware resources”
“ALGOL 68 was much better than the ALGOL W proposed by Wirth, or than its successor, Pascal”
“that Algol code is not very pretty”
“too big and complicated for Unix”
“Algol 68 operators are amazing but I don't see them playing well with C.”
“Algol 68 is set in stone. This is what allows a single dedicated person to write the initial code”
“finally an easy way to play with ALGOL 68”
“I always think of it as sort of the poster child for the danger of "design by committee".”
“I think Algo 68 could develop into something better than C++, it has some of the pieces already in place.”
“The language itself is actually surprisingly nice for its time, very orthogonal and composable.”
“A number of mind-boggling ideas (for the time), complexity, an array of kitchen sinks.”
“As a fan of Algol 68, I'm pretty excited for this.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.