Algol in France: From Universal Project to Embedded Culture

Mounier-Kuhn, Pierre

doi:10.1109/mahc.2014.50

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Duby never completed his doctorate, yet switched to programming languages and systems, and ended up heading a computer science laboratory jointly created by IBM and the University of Grenoble in 1967. He was the first French computer scientist trained in all branches of mathematics, except in numerical analysis [47] 17 .…”

Section: The 1960s: a Convergence With Computer Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Logic, Formal Linguistics and Computing in France: From Non-reception to Progressive Convergence

Mounier-Kuhn

2016

IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology

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How did the theory and practice of computing interact to generate a new discipline, computer science? Studying the French scene, in comparison with other countries, reveals that in most cases computing developed initially as an ancillary technique of applied mathematics, with little awareness of the pathbreaking theories of computability elaborated in the 1930s. This was particularly clear in France, where mathematical logic was almost inexistent and disregarded by the Bourbaki group. It was only in the early 1960s that researchers in the emerging field of computing felt the need for theoretical models, and discovered the Turing machine and recursive functions. Simultaneously, an interest for language theories and information structures, fostered by practical projects such as machine translation, converged with issues raised by software development and the nascent theory of automata. The convergence of these diverse intellectual agenda was central in the process of construction of the new discipline.

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Section: The 1960s: a Convergence With Computer Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Soon after Grenoble, other faculties where computing science remained firmly rooted in mathematics joined this convergence movement, particularly Nancy, Lille and Clermont, in conjunction with research on the Algol language [47].…”

Section: The 1960s: a Convergence With Computer Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

Logic, Formal Linguistics and Computing in France: From Non-reception to Progressive Convergence

Mounier-Kuhn

2016

IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology

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AFCAL and the Emergence of Computer Science in France: 1957–1967

Mounier-Kuhn

Pégny

2016

Pursuit of the Universal

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Abstract. Founded in 1957, the Association Française de Calcul (AF-CAL) was the first French society dedicated mainly to numerical computation. Its rapid growth and amalgamation with sister societies in related fields (Operations Research, Automatic Control) in the 1960s resulted in changes of its name and purpose, including the invention and adoption of the term informatique in 1962-1964, then of the adoption of cybernétique in 1967. Our paper aims at explicating the motives of its creation, its evolving definition and the functions it fulfilled. We seek to understand how this association, altogether a learned and a professional society, contributed to the emergence and recognition of Computing as an academic discipline in France. The main sources are the scattered surviving records of AFCAL, conserved in the archives

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Assembling a prehistory for formal methods: a personal view

Haigh

2019

Form. Asp. Comput.

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The history of formal methods has barely been written. Haigh recapitulates his own exposure to relevant material during three phases of his development as a scholar: as a student of computer science, as a graduate student in history, and as a professor researching the history of computing. Triangulating these perspectives suggests that formal methods is one of several strands emerging from a community of researchers that gathered around Algol, flirted with software engineering, and found an enduring home in the IFIP working group on programming methodologies. Yet the story of how a declared “formal methods” movement emerged fromthis group has remains unclear.Haigh explores some relevant ideas fromacademic history, sketches historical connections between formal methods and other areas of computer science, and concludes with some suggestion for and challenges to formal methods participants who aim to tell the story of their field. This, he suggests, may cheer up Donald Knuth.

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Algol in France: From Universal Project to Embedded Culture

Cited by 5 publications

References 23 publications

Logic, Formal Linguistics and Computing in France: From Non-reception to Progressive Convergence

Logic, Formal Linguistics and Computing in France: From Non-reception to Progressive Convergence

AFCAL and the Emergence of Computer Science in France: 1957–1967

Assembling a prehistory for formal methods: a personal view

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