| Modula | |
| Paradigms: | Imperative, structured, modular |
| Family: | Wirth Modula |
| Designer: | Niklaus Wirth |
| Developer: | Niklaus Wirth |
| Typing: | Static, strong, safe |
| Scope: | Lexical |
| Discontinued: | Yes |
| Platform: | PDP-11, LSI-11 |
| Influenced By: | Pascal |
| Influenced: | Alma-0, Go, Modula-2 |
The Modula programming language is a descendant of the Pascal language. It was developed in Switzerland, at ETH Zurich, in the mid-1970s by Niklaus Wirth, the same person who designed Pascal. The main innovation of Modula over Pascal is a module system, used for grouping sets of related declarations into program units; hence the name Modula. The language is defined in a report by Wirth called Modula. A language for modular multiprogramming published 1976.[1]
Modula was first implemented by Wirth on a PDP-11. Very soon, other implementations followed, most importantly, the compilers developed for University of York Modula, and one at Philips Laboratories named PL Modula, which generated code for the LSI-11 microprocessor.
The development of Modula was discontinued soon after its publication. Wirth then concentrated his efforts on Modula's successor, Modula-2.