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From: Mike.Chapin@f16.n15.z1.fidonet.org (Mike Chapin)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.modula2
Subject: TopSpeed 3.01 First impressions
Message-ID: <3252.28683DC1@puddle.fidonet.org>
Date: 23 Jun 91 15:33:20 GMT
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comment to Greg Granger:
> Comm Toolbox manual.  The writer of the manual (clearly a die-hard
> C programmer) couldn't understand why "the Modula-2 community
> attached itself to an awkward set of I/O procedures, largely
> ignoring the solutions for similar problems already found in C."
> So this person wrote a kludgy Printf in M2.  Considering this
> is the type of person JPI hires to write their toolboxes I guess
> we are lucky they didn't 'improve' M2 by replacing all those
 
I haven't checked out the COMM library but it suprises me that one of
their developers would take such a stand.  Their C compiler is written
in M2.
 
M2 isn't my favorite language, portability between MS-DOS compilers is
terrible and the heavy type checking drives me crazy when I'm doing low
level stuff. Doing a COMM library from scratch in M2 should be no problem
and doing a printf() clone should be a snap with the pragma setup they
have now.  I too get tired of the "my language is better" evangelists. I
work in four languages (if you count ASM) and several compilers of each
(the thrill of writing libraries) and each of them have their own merits.
C is great when writing programs that involves a lot of low level machine
access, M2 is for large projects where you need to keep a very complex
system under control without the programmer(s) going nuts.
 
I use Turbo Pascal for smaller systems and prototyping where the instant
gratification of fast compilation speeds up productivity,  And that's what
this business is all about.  Getting your new whiz-bang application to the
people who are going to use it.
 
--Mike


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