[inetsee]

Algol was the first programming language I learned in college. I also used Ada professionally for years. I believe that Ada is not at all like Algol, even though Ada was nominally based on the Algol family of languages (including Pascal). I think of Ada as a monster of a language, more like PL/I than Algol, and very difficult to learn in its entirety. Algol is an elegant language, and I think you can learn enough of it to make use of its power in a fraction of the time you'd spend getting proficient with Ada.

[breadbox]

To be clear, I was talking more about how it was perceived at the time, not about how it actually was. (And of course, what was kitchen-sink-worthy in 1960 would be seen as ultracompact today.) But in any case, I bow to someone with actual experience.