Walt wrote:
> "Bob Badour" <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca> wrote in message
> news:Qc8xh.2066$R71.30214_at_ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca...
>
>>Walt wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Bob Badour attributed the invention of stacks to Djikstra. I would have
>>>supposed that John McCarthy invented stacks somewhat earlier.
>>>
>>>Does anyone know whether Djikstra got the idea for stacks from someone
>
> else,
>
>>>or invented it independently?
>>>Does anyone know whether stacks (sometimes called pushdown lists in the
>>>early literature) predate McCarthy's development of Lisp?
>>
>>First, I should point out that Dijkstra, himself, gives credit to
>>several others who apparently came up with the same idea at around the
>>same time he did.
>
>>Wikipedia dates the publication of LISP at 1960 versus the stack at 1959:
>
> McCarthy built Lisp earlier, although he didn't publish until 1960.
According to a friend of a friend, McCarthy invented the stack for LISP
in the fall of 1958, which puts it ahead of Dijkstra's invention of the
stack by some months.
Received on Sun Feb 04 2007 - 14:31:08 CST
