Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!haven!adm!xadmx!PETERSEN@ctrvx1.Vanderbilt.Edu
From: PETERSEN@ctrvx1.Vanderbilt.Edu (Chris Petersen - VUCC)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: \"standard\" pascal
Message-ID: <20160@adm.BRL.MIL>
Date: 1 Jul 89 01:20:13 GMT
Sender: news@adm.BRL.MIL
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From:	IN%"afoiani@dante.nmsu.edu"  "Anthony Foiani" 30-JUN-1989 17:50:38.96
[look at what turbo does have]
  graphics (which you would need to write and interface)
  integrated environment (lotsa luck with generic software...)
  fast compile/execute, with no need to muck w/ LINK etc.
  small overhead (v5.0 is only 160k... v3.1, which is suitable for
    education purposes, is only about 40k)
  easy commands (v5 has menus, v3 command keys...)
  industry base.  (I am relatively sure that Turbo has more purchasers
    than MS Pascal, IBM Pascal, etc...)

Graphics?  Which obey no standard and are better left for some 
other course which could dwell on graphics as a subject unto
itself...

Integrated environment?  This gets in the way of teaching the
language underlying the product, and becomes something else
which both instructor and student must spend time and brain-
power on...

Fact compile and execute?  Granted, this is a plus.

No LINK?  This does not look like what most of the world does
when they compile, so I think you're doing the student a dis-
service by not making them familiar with it...

Easy commands and menus?  Tell someone s/he is computer literate
because s/he can use menus and a mouse and you will make that
person a laughing stock if s/he interviews with a company that
doesn't do those things yet (as if, perhaps, they were an IBM
mainframe shop?)...

Industry base?  So what?  That is like arguing that the only
Pascal compiler you have to know is the one on IBM 370-series
machines because they dominate some sectors of the market...


These also, are only thoughts and I invite rebuttal to me 
personally if it really doesn't concern Pascal, or to the list
if it *REALLY* does...  I have jus borken my own rules, it 
seems, but maybe this is really about Pascal after all...

-Chris Petersen
Vanderbilt University
petersen@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu
petersen@vuctrvx1.bitnet

P.S.  Sorry for un-NET-iquette and any typos, but I working
from home on a crappy, stone-age terminal in an unfamiliar
editor...