Michael T. Richter wrote:
>  I'm not sure that this is a meaningful question.  What problems did 
>  *any* language past patch cabling circuit boards solve?  If you set the 
>  bar low enough (or high enough) all current computer languages are 
>  imperfect reflections of a Turing machine anyway.  (Yes, even the 
>  functional ones based on Church instead of Turing.  They're just REALLY 
>  obfuscated.)

Actually, I think it's Turing and Von Neumann that were obfuscated -- 
Church and McCarthy got it right. ;)

But seriously, I don't recall having read any of Turing's practical work 
on design of real computers, but I *have* read Von Neumann's, and there 
is a certain elegance in Von Neumann's design that I don't think has 
ever been surpassed, and it's certainly much more elegant than a Turing 
machine.