Simula is a programming language developed in the 1960s at the Norwegian Computing Centre in Oslo, primarily by Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard. Syntactically, it is a superset of Algol programming language, adding features that are close to the modern idea of class (computer science) and object (computing), plus coroutines.

Simula introduced the object-oriented (programming) programming paradigm and thus can be considered the first object-oriented programming language and a predecessor to Smalltalk (programming language), C plus plus, Java_programming_language, C sharp, and all modern class-based (programming) object-oriented languages. As its name implies, Simula was designed for doing simulations, and the needs of that domain provided the framework for many of the features of object-oriented languages today.

Simula was never just an academic language (it was still used for a few real-world applications as of 2003), but its historical influence is considered far more important than any actual work done with it.

= Hello world =

An example of a Hello world program in Simula:

BEGIN WHILE 1=1 DO BEGIN outtext( Hello World! ); outimage; END; END;

= See also =

*Object-oriented programming *BETA programming language (a modern successor to Simula) *Simulation language *ENEA AB

= External links =