First released in 1987, with a stable release in 1990, the ABC programming language was developed at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica in the Netherlands by Leo Geurts, Lambert Meertens, and Steven Pemberton.
ABC is an imperative, general-purpose programming language and integrated development environment (IDE). It is an interactive, structured, and high-level language intended for teaching or prototyping, but not as a systems-programming language. However, its designers intended for the language to be used for general programming, the sort of programming that BASIC or Pascal would normally be used for. While not a systems-programming language, it is well suited for expressing and developing systems-programming type algorithms.
Influenced by SETL and ALGOL 68, ABC had a major influence on the design of the Python programming language, which was developed by Guido van Rossum, who had worked on the ABC system for several years in the 1980s.
According to its designers, the ABC programming language is more readable and typically results in programs that are about one-fourth the size of equivalent programs written in Pascal or C. ABC has only five data types, while Pascal has thirteen and C has nineteen. In ABC, there are no required variable declarations, and it supports top-down programming. Statement nesting is indicated by indentation through the off-side rule. Additionally, ABC supports infinite precision arithmetic, unlimited-sized lists and strings, and other features that make it a good choice for novice programmers.
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.
Its first stable release, issued in 1990, is its latest version. It is ported to Atari, DOS, macOS, and Unix.
This part of our computer programming language guide covers the ABC programming language. Topics related to the language itself, or any tutorials, user groups, forums, or reviews are appropriate for this category.
Recommended Resources
DBpedia: ABC (programming language)
DBpedia extracts structured content from the information created in the Wikipedia project and makes it available on the Internet. Maintained by the DBpedia Association, the site is used for research, industry, and education. Its section on ABC, an imperative general-purpose programming language and IDE, intended for teaching or prototyping, includes structured information about the language's abstract, developer, programming paradigm, influences, and operating system.
https://dbpedia.org/page/ABC_(programming_language)
Luciano Ramalho, author of Fluent Python, maintains this GitHub repository of implementations and examples for the ABC programming language, designed to be readable and easy to use. Although the repository has not been added to for more than thirteen years, the repository contains implementations downloaded from an earlier book on the language, as well as a hands-on introduction to the language, including several programming examples, a user's guide, and a complete definition of the language.
https://github.com/ramalho/abc
GitHub: ABC Programming Language
GitHub is a developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share the code for their software products, including access control, bug tracking, feature requests, task management, and continuous integration. Łukasz Włodarczyk, one of the developers of the ABC programming language, created this repository, which contains the source code for the language, as well as instructions on how to use it or to get involved with contributing to the project.
https://github.com/lukibw/abc
Sean P. Myrick, a Python programmer, created this repository on GitHub to showcase his knowledge of the ABC programming language and continued learning the language. The repository includes ABC code, documentation, and other resources related to the project. The included documentation includes an index, description, and history of the programming language, installation instructions, current and past issues, and information on contributing to the project, available under a GPL license.
https://github.com/seanpm2001/Learn-ABC
Steven Pemberton: The ABC Programming Language
ABC is an interactive programming language designed by Leo Geurts, Lambert Meertens, and Steven Pemberton, the author of this website, which included a profile of the language, example function words, and links to where “The ABC Programmer’s Handbook,” written by Geurts, Meertens, and Pemberton, can be purchased online. Additionally, the full text of the book is available online, including an introduction, a quick look at the language, examples, use, a description, and an appendix.
https://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/abc/
