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From: rothstei@mcs.kent.edu (Michael Rothstein)
Newsgroups: comp.org.acm
Subject: Re: Contests (was Re: Yet another posting...:))
Message-ID: <1991May9.010805.21605@mcs.kent.edu>
Date: 9 May 91 01:08:05 GMT
References: <1991May3.150303.22506@mcs.kent.edu> <6X3B-PB@xds13.ferranti.com> <1494@caslon.cs.arizona.edu>
Organization: Kent State University
Lines: 46

In article <1494@caslon.cs.arizona.edu> shack@cs.arizona.edu (David Shackelford) writes:
>
>I have a decidedly PC-oriented viewpoint in this area.  Turbo IS the
>standard Pascal, IMHO.  Other Pascals need to change to the Turbo way
>of doing things. (With exception of machine-specifics).  When I
>program in "standard" Pascal I get completely lost because you can't
>do ANYTHING in it!
Well, unfortunately, it was not Borland, but ISO who defined the standard,
though I must agree they came up with a very cr*ppy standard: yes, I
would prefer some extras: an OTHERWISE clause for case statements,
incrementing/decrementing by something different from 1, more control
structures, different syntax, blah, blah, blah. Only one problem:
they new language would still have problems!!! ;-) The perfect programming
language (even single purpose, for ALL tastes) has not been invented,
and I doubt we will see such a beast within our lifetimes. What we
have is ISO Pascal and/or ANSI C, and I think they will stick with us
(at least contest-wise) for a few years. (Yeah, I also hope they add C++ soon!)
I certainly hope we are using the standards, not some enhanced versions!
There is another bone I have to pick on here: notice I said OTHERWISE, not ELSE
above: I DO NOT share this PC-orientation mentioned above: in fact, IMO
PC's are expensive single user boxes which should not have been invented:
at any rate, as I mentioned before, we don't have any, nor are we unhappy
about it: we preferred to spend our equipment moneys in a more effective
manner.
>
>For the college level contests, I think the only way to go is ANSI C.
>Better would be C++, but not enough people know it yet...
>
>For the high school level, it's a tossup between Pascal and BASIC.
							     ^^^^^
"It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students who've
had a prior exposure to Basic; as potential programmers they are mentally
mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." Edsgar Dijkstra
(though not quite as extreme as he is, I also think we should not encourage
the usage of Basic).
>
>David Shackelford       shack@cs.arizona.edu
>UofA ACM Secretary

Let me finish this note with a thank you to all of those who showed your 
support to my previous posting. THANKS!
-- 
Michael Rothstein (Kent State U)|	If cars want to kill themselves,
(rothstei@cs.kent.edu)		|	that's their problem: what I can't
			 	|	understand is why they keep doing it
(std. disclaimer)		|	with people inside. (Mafalda (Quino))