Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!ccu.umanitoba.ca!frist
From: frist@ccu.umanitoba.ca
Newsgroups: comp.org.acm
Subject: Re: Turbo the standard?  I think not.
Message-ID: <1991May8.135504.310@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Date: 8 May 91 13:55:04 GMT
References: <1991May3.150303.22506@mcs.kent.edu> <6X3B-PB@xds13.ferranti.com> <1494@caslon.cs.arizona.edu> <?.bGejk$1@cs.psu.edu> <1497@caslon.cs.arizona.edu>
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
Lines: 43

In article <1497@caslon.cs.arizona.edu> shack@cs.arizona.edu (David Shackelford) writes:
>In article <?.bGejk$1@cs.psu.edu> hvozda@mirkwood.endor.cs.psu.edu (Eric S Hvozda) writes:
>>
>>Turbo is NOT standard.  Since when is a ELSE on a CASE statement standard?
>>If one knows standard PASCAL, turbo is nothing.  BTW, the type STRING(n) 
>>is not standard either.  The standard way is PACKED ARRAY [1..x] OF string
>>where string = PACKED ARRAY [1..n] OF CHAR;  What is the reasoning behind
>>saying that Turbo is the standard?  Given it is used widely, but wide usage
>>does not make a standard.
>
>I didn't mean to say Turbo is standard, merely that it should be.
>
... examples of non-standard Turbo constructs

>I didn't learn Turbo Pascal from a college class, I learned it
>on my PC at home.  Every time I try to write a standard Pascal 
>program on Unix I find something that Turbo does but standard
>doesn't.  I haven't tried much standard Pascal because it's
>too frustrating -- I do it in C instead. 
>
>Dave  |   Turbo user since 1.0

The frustration runs both ways. Turbo Pascal eliminated the ability to 
access the file pointer. For example:

if F^ = CH then   {CH is a char, F is a text file}

This is a fundamental part of file I/O in canonical J&V STANDARD Pascal,
and is handy because it lets you pre-screen the next character before it is
read in. I have used this in dozens of programs over more than a decade,
with 8 different Pascal compilers, and TP is the first that had the
audacity to eliminate such a fundamental STANDARD feature. I gave my 
copy of TP away and bought Microsoft.
 
===============================================================================
Brian Fristensky                |  
Department of Plant Science     | "There's a big ... machine in the sky...
University of Manitoba          | some kind of electric snake... coming
Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2  CANADA    | straight at us." 
frist@ccu.umanitoba.ca          | "Shoot it," said my attorney.
Office phone:   204-474-6085    |"Not yet," I said,"I want to study its habits"
FAX:            204-275-5128    |H.S. Thompson, FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS
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