This remark appears in Tony Hoare’s essay “Hints on Programming-Language Design”, and refers to ALGOL 60. Developed around 1960, ALGOL 60 introduced ideas, such as block structure and clear syntax, that shaped many of the languages that followed.

Hoare’s praise carries a pointed second half. He judges the language not only better than what came before, but better than most of what came after. The implication is that later designers, in adding features and complexity, lost some of the clarity and discipline that ALGOL 60 had achieved.

The comment reflects a recurring theme in Hoare’s writing: that progress in technology is not guaranteed, and that newer is not always better. It serves both as a tribute to a landmark design and as a gentle criticism of a field that did not always build on its best early work.