Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mstan!amull
From: amull@Morgan.COM (Andrew P. Mullhaupt)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Runtime dimensioning and Pascal
Summary: Procedure parameters supported in Turbo Pascal v. >=5.0
Message-ID: <504@s5.Morgan.COM>
Date: 12 Nov 89 17:49:47 GMT
References: <6354@merlin.usc.edu> <9686@vax1.cc.lehigh.edu> <1989Nov12.040036.10887@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu>
Organization: Morgan Stanley & Co. NY, NY
Lines: 32


Turbo Pascal supports procedure and function parameters in all
versions >= 5.0. The useful extension procedure and function
types is also supported.

The failure to support ISO level 1 extensions (conformant array
parameters) cannot, strictly speaking be considered a failure
to conform to the ISO standard. ANSI only supports ISO level 0,
so level 1 support is strictly speaking, and ANSI extension.

Borland and Microsoft (following Borland's lead) are off on some
tangent to Pascal: Object extensions. While what we probably need
are extensible arrays and removal of segmentation restrictions 
(and no stupid 'huge' keyword nonsense, either!) the big two
Pascal vendors seem to be preoccupied with marketing.

As far as the dreaded file I/O goes, get real guys. Pascal clearly
intends this operating system dependent stuff to be ingored by
the standard, and handled by extensions, for the most part. Thus
you need to write a collection of primitives for I/O that are
implemented for each OS you need. If you write all your code
in terms of ISO standrard invocations of your I/O routines, then
you can port anything to any OS where you have implemented your
primitives. Anyone who has a great stake in multiple machine
ports of software should be willing to invest the time to write
a few I/O routines and then paste up the appropriate source@c{" in 
an automated way. I have found that this approach actually can
result in efficiency gains, and I've yet to lose anywhere near
the time porting Pascal as I have lost porting C.

Later,
Andrew Mullhaupt