In evaluating a language, computer scientists consider many properties.
CHAP. 4] SOFTWARE 59
From the earliest days, efficiency of execution has been a desirable property. In fact, FORTRAN was
widely adopted in large part because it created code that was very nearly as fast as assembly language code.
Without its characteristic efficiency, FORTRAN would have been adopted much more slowly by the programmers
of the 1950s and 1960s who worked in an environment where the cost of running a program was an expensive
multiple of the CPU seconds the program consumed.
Human readability is another desirable trait in a language. Cobol syntax is as ???wordy??? as it is because the
designers of Cobol wanted the code to be self-documenting. The designers hoped to guarantee that Cobol would
be easy for a human to read, regardless of the commenting style of the author.
A language that is easy to implement has an advantage. The language ADA can serve as a contrary example.
While ADA is an excellent and carefully designed language, ADA has been adopted more slowly than some
others, in part because its size and complexity initially made it more difficult to implement, especially on
smaller computers.
Computer scientists also praise a language for expressiveness.
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