ABC had a major influence on the design of the language Python, developed by Guido van Rossum, who formerly worked for several years on the ABC system in the mid-1980s.[3][4]
Features
Its designers claim that ABC programs are typically around a quarter the size of the equivalent Pascal or C programs, and more readable.[5] Key features include:
The full ABC system includes a programming environment with a structure editor (syntax-directed editor), suggestions, static variables (persistent), and multiple workspaces, and is available as an interpreter–compiler. As of 2020[update], the latest version is 1.05.02, and it is ported to Unix, DOS, Atari, and Apple MacOS.
Example
An example function to collect the set of all words in a document:[6]
HOW TO RETURN words document:
PUT {} IN collection
FOR line IN document:
FOR word IN split line:
IF word not.in collection:
INSERT word IN collection
RETURN collection
Implementations
ABC has been through multiple iterations, with the current version being the 4th major release. Implementations exist for Unix-like systems, MS-DOS/Windows, Macintosh, and other platforms. The source code was made available via Usenet in the late 1980s/early 1990s.
^Hamilton, Naomi (2008-05-08). "The A-Z of Programming Languages: Python". Computerworld. IDG Communications. Archived from the original on 2008-12-29. Retrieved 2020-09-04. ... I figured I could design and implement a language 'almost, but not quite, entirely unlike' ABC, improving upon ABC's deficiencies, ...
^Stewart, Bruce (2002-06-04). "An Interview with Guido van Rossum". ONLamp.com. O’Reilly Media. Archived from the original on 2013-03-13. Retrieved 2020-09-04. ... in my head I had analyzed some of the reasons it had failed.
^This article is based on material taken from ABC at the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing prior to 1 November 2008 and incorporated under the "relicensing" terms of the GFDL, version 1.3 or later.