Marko Rauhamaa wrote: > Gregory Ewing <greg.ew...@canterbury.ac.nz>: >> I don't agree that the word "for" necessarily implies proceduralness. > > Programming languages stole the word from math, where it is > nonprocedural. > > Really, "for" is just a preposition. In Algol, for example, > proceduralness was not in the word "for" but in "do": [snip] > I guess we have C to blame for the redefinition of the word "for" in > programmers' minds.
Sorry, but that use of "for" was part of the programmer's lexicon well before the invention of C. Computer languages have inherited and used it since (at least) 1948. Dartmouth BASIC (1964) had "FOR" FOR I=1 TO 10 ALGOL-60 (1960) had "for" for i:=1 step 1 until 10 ALGOL-58 (1958) had "for" for i:=1(1)10 Superplan (1948) had "fur" (German for the English word "for") Für k=1(1)10 : -- Lew Pitcher "In Skills, We Trust" PGP public key available upon request -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
