Christopher J. Shaw

Early in June 1963 there was a meeting in Berlin [1] of the Subcommittee for Programming Languages, SC5 of TC97, the Technical Committee for Standardization of Computers and Information Processing [2]. Taking advantage of the proximity of Poland and Czechoslovakia, who are interested in the subject but have not actively participated in SC5, a small group representing the Secretariat of SC5 visited those countries. The major purpose of the visit was to discuss such topics as the state of the art of programming languages in each country—both development and use, any national standardization activity, participation in international standardization, and the present state and future prospects of international standardization. A formal report was made to SC5 in Berlin after the visit. The present report is not an official report of the visit. It is a private report of the group, intended for public dissemination. It includes some material not directly relevant to the official purpose of the visit and omits some of the material pertinent only to the official ISO activity, or parts of the discussions which it would be premature or discourteous to publish at this time.