Supporting a flourishing language culture

Session Chairmants Remarks DOD Higher-Order Language Environment Workshop Peter Wegner Box F, Brown University Providence, Rhode Island 0Z91Z The basic idea behind his session is that a programming language provides a basis for the development of a literature of programs and a culture associated with its community of users. This happens with natural languages over a period of many generations~ and with programming languages over a period of a few years. We want to look at the mechanisms involved in creating such a culture and consider how the process of introducing a new programming language such as DOD/I might be helped by understanding of these mechanisms. We can gain some insight into these mechanisms by examining existing language cultures for Fortran, Cobol, Algol, Lisp, Basic, APL, etc., and attempting to understand the factors which govern the success of these languages. Understanding the "cultural dynamics" of existing languages should help in the formulation of policies, incentive schemes~, technology transfer mechanisms, etc. to encourage the development of a new language culture.