Re: Java and Python have just discovered "record" type finally after 40 years.

[Niklas Holsti <niklas.holsti@tidorum.invalid>]

On 2023-05-13 0:33, Jeffrey R.Carter wrote:
> On 2023-05-12 19:50, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
>>
>> Java 14 now have "Record" !
>>
>> And Python 3.7 now has records, they call it "data class"
>>
>> What took them so long? Pascal and Ada had records
>> from day one, only 40 years ago or so.


Java and Python have classes, which have records as a special case, if 
the term "record" is understood as in most other languages, including Ada.

But it seems that the Java 14 "record" is not quite the same as an Ada 
record, because Java 14 records are meant to be immutable data carriers, 
not mutable data structures. Still, Java 14 records are described as a 
(very) special case of classes.


> Pascal had them in 1970. Algol, I think, had them in 1960.


Algol 60 did not have records, only arrays.

Algol W, a precursor to Pascal, had them in 1966.

Simula had them in 1967. (Wikipedia says "In 1966 C. A. R. Hoare 
introduced the concept of record class construct".)

Algol 68 had them in 1968.

Pascal had them in 1970, as you say.