Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!udel!princeton!njin!spcvxb.spc.edu!siegfried_r
From: siegfried_r@spcvxb.spc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: MS Pascal vs. Turbo
Message-ID: <1990Nov29.172808.810@spcvxb.spc.edu>
Date: 29 Nov 90 17:28:08 GMT
References: <6302@vice.ICO.TEK.COM>
Distribution: comp.lang.pascal
Organization: St. Peter's College, US
Lines: 37

In article <6302@vice.ICO.TEK.COM>, bobb@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Bob Beauchaine)
 writes:
> 
>   With Turbo 6.0 now a reality, I would like to take the time to
>   present this unsolicited opinion of Turbo Pascal vs. Microsoft
>   Pascal.  (A few posters seem to want to know...).
> 
>   I am the proud? owner of both Turbo and MS Pascal.  I have made 
>   a few discoveries over the last year or so about the relative
>   merits of each.
> 
>   Summary:  Unless your programs tend to consist of writeln('Hello, world');
>   don't bother with Quick Pascal.  In the end, you'll be glad you didn't.

	I was told several years ago about several bugs in Microsoft Pascal.  
Given the popularity of Turbo Pascal, I would think that adhering to  the ISO 
standard would not be important.

	My experience with Microsoft FORTRAN taught me that their User Support 
people did not always know what they were talking about.  Two phone calls 
connected me to two very pleasant people who gave me WRONG answers most 
politely to questions about building libraries without a hard disk, something I 
still have not discovered how to do.  The compiler itself (version 5) works 
quite well, but my experience makes me question the overall quality of their 
products, especially given their most famous kludge, OS/2.

	If only Borland would develop Turbo DOS and Turbo FORTRAN.  Then I 
could ditch Microsoft(tm) altogether.

Disclaimer: These are not my opinion;
	    I only rented them.

					Robert Siegfried
					Computer Science Dept.
					Saint Peter's College
					Jersey City, NJ  07306
					siegfried_r@spcvxa.spc.edu