[HN Gopher] The original ABC language, Python's predecessor (1991)
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       The original ABC language, Python's predecessor (1991)
        
       Author : tony
       Score  : 42 points
       Date   : 2025-11-28 19:58 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | dvdkon wrote:
       | Nice find. This looks like the best introduction to the language
       | in the repo: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gvanrossum/abc-
       | unix/refs/h...
        
         | nuancebydefault wrote:
         | Wow 2 * 1000 without rounding errors, 40 years ago this must
         | have been super impressive, since I find that quite a feat of
         | today's python.
        
           | nick__m wrote:
           | 2 * 1000 is 2000 ;)
           | 
           | I think you meant 2**1000
           | 
           | the syntax for formatting ate your star
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc
        
       | ahartmetz wrote:
       | Interesting, seems like Python is a strict improvement over ABC
       | though many things are very similar. The PUT ... IN ... and
       | INSERT ... IN ... syntax looks quite clunky and un-composable, at
       | least the examples never do more than one (high-level) operation
       | per line. Also, I guess GvR's English wasn't that good at the
       | time - it should be have been INTO, right?
        
         | zahlman wrote:
         | "in" vs "into" is often just a matter of how casually you're
         | speaking.
         | 
         | The same sort of syntax was used in HyperTalk (with "into"):
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperTalk#Description I wouldn't
         | be surprised to hear of it in AppleScript, either, although I
         | can't recall.
        
       | zahlman wrote:
       | Extremely cool. Thanks, GvR.
       | 
       | For my own language design I've wanted to introduce some of this
       | ABC syntax back into Python. Mainly for unpacking data and doing
       | index/slice assignments; a lot of beginners seem to get tripped
       | up because assignments in Python use the same syntax as
       | mutations, so maybe it's better to write e.g. `a['b'] = c` like
       | `set b = c in a`, or `update a with {'b': c}`, or ... who knows,
       | exactly.
        
       | perrohunter wrote:
       | Where is the GIL in this?
        
       | dec0dedab0de wrote:
       | The year says 91, but it looks like it was recently pushed to
       | github, which is a notable event on its own.
        
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       (page generated 2025-11-28 23:00 UTC)