Lisa Awards: Most Format Restrictive Language
Fortran pre-90 was very restrictive. There is the magic of column one, the line numbers, etc.
The original Fortran was written for the IBM 704 and you programmed it on punch cards which is why the restrictions were in place. Before Fortran, most of the community were coding using assembler, and Fortran was a factor of 20 more concise. Take that modern Ruby!
There were some close runners up. Fortran 90 fixed a bunch of these issues, however it was a touch too late.
Some forms of Basic has some of the issues too, namely with the explicit line numbers.
Python should maybe win the award since it is a very modern language, and the restrictiveness that people love or hate are not due to computer needs, but rather a benevolent dictator and his opinions :)
Fortran has also won the award for “programming language name that sounds like a robot from the future”.
What about the other awards?
- Lifetime Achievement
- Community Waiting for an Update
- Biggest Hack for a Language Runtime
- Most Original Name for a New Language
- Most Format Restrictive Language
- Best Comeback for a Programming Language
- Most Overloaded Product Name
Got some ideas for awards you would give?
