The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):

Interface Description Language

   (IDL) A language designed by Nestor, Lamb and Wulf of CMU in
   1981 for describing the data structures passed between parts
   of an application, to provide a language-independent
   intermediate representation.

   It forms part of Richard Snodgrass 's
   Scorpion environment development system.

   Not to be confused with any of the other IDLs.

   Mailing list: info-idl@sei.cmu.edu.

   ["The Interface Description Language: Definition and Use," by
   Richard Snodgrass, Computer Science Press, 1989, ISBN
   0-7167-8198-0].

   [SIGPLAN Notices 22(11) (Nov 1987) special issue].

   (1994-11-11)