ALGOL 68 (short for ALGOrithmic Language 1968) is an imperative computer programming language that was conceived as a successor to the ALGOL 60 programming language, designed with the goal of a much wider scope of application and more rigorously defined syntax and semantics.The contributions of ALGOL 68 to the field of computer science have been deep, wide ranging and enduring, although many of these contributions were only publicly identified when they had reappeared in subsequently developed programming languages.