
Plankalkül - vmorgulis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankalk%C3%BCl
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detaro
The wikipedia page sadly doesn't show the original, 2D structured notation:

[http://www.catb.org/retro/plankalkuel/figure3.png](http://www.catb.org/retro/plankalkuel/figure3.png)
(found with other info
on[http://www.catb.org/retro/plankalkuel/](http://www.catb.org/retro/plankalkuel/))

~~~
krylon
I had wondered what that would look like. It is even more confusing than I had
imagined.

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krylon
Syntax and historical merit aside, I think this is one of the coolest names
for a programming language ever.

Technical/mathematical German has - to me as a native German speaker, at least
- a sound to it that is somehow ... neither cool nor uncool, actually, it
somehow transcends the entire concept.

~~~
MichaelMoser123
Kalkül is the word for calculus used by Leibniz. So that Plankalkül is a
calculus for plans.

the code example for finding a maximum of three numbers is a bit complex. I
mean you can do shorter in assembly

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YeGoblynQueenne
I took it to mean "a calculus for planning" in the GOFAI sense of "planning".

~~~
krylon
I don't think Zuse had AI in mind at the time. The planning would have to be
done by the programmer.

This also fits in better with the fact he invented (or at least envisioned) a
"Planfertigungsgerät" (plan preparation device) to convert the "Plan" from
human-readable notation into something the computer could run (effectively, a
compiler).

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felixx
Slightly related is a kick-scooter that goes by the same name. Made by the
hacker MechBern who is also part of the Bodenstaendig 2000 band. Together they
produced a great song and promotion video for the Plankalkül scooter called
Extreme Einkaufing: [http://www.bodenstaendig.de/plankalkul/video-
en.html](http://www.bodenstaendig.de/plankalkul/video-en.html)
[http://www.bodenstandig.de/media/extreme%20einkaufing%20352x...](http://www.bodenstandig.de/media/extreme%20einkaufing%20352x288%20wmv8%20950%20wma8%2064.wmv)

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brudgers
There's part of me half expecting some HN'er to pop up and tell stories about
cutting their teeth on a Plankalkül code base as a young whipper-snapper.

~~~
sswaner
Followed by a link to a Plankalkül web framework on GitHub.

~~~
usrusr
...and an incomplete js transpiler ( _), and a heated discussion about how
exactly the TIOBE index is unfairly skewed against plankalkül.

(_ implemented by comparing the provided source against any plankalkül
implementations that might exist on [http://www.99-bottles-of-
beer.net/](http://www.99-bottles-of-beer.net/) and emits the highest rated js
implementation if it matches, undefined otherwise)

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mafribe
Here is a paper that describe the Plankalkül in more detail.

* R. Rojas, C. Göktekin, G. Friedland, M. Krüger, Plankalkül: The First High-Level Programming Language and its Implementation. ftp://ftp.mi.fu-berlin.de/pub/reports/TR-B-00-03.pdf

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chris_wot
The Second World War stopped a lot of good things. One of them was Konrad
Zuse.

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kafkaesq
Ah, German. Such a beautiful language.

