Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!cbatt!cwruecmp!hal!ncoast!tdi2!brandon From: brandon@tdi2.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Turbo C Message-ID: <142@tdi2.UUCP> Date: Fri, 27-Feb-87 12:44:29 EST Article-I.D.: tdi2.142 Posted: Fri Feb 27 12:44:29 1987 Date-Received: Mon, 2-Mar-87 20:53:52 EST References: <691@imsvax.UUCP> Reply-To: brandon@tdi2.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc Organization: Tridelta Industries, Inc., Mentor, OH Lines: 88 Quoted from <691@imsvax.UUCP> ["Re: Turbo C"], by ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden)... +--------------- | kent@ncoast of Cleveland Public Access UNIX, Cleveland, OH writes: | | >1. Non-standard (in troubling and non-trivial ways) implementations. Borland | >says that Turbo C will adhere to ANSI Standard C, but don't expect it to | >be any closer than Microsoft C 4.0. My bet is that it will be as close to | >ANSI C as Turbo Pascal is to ISO Pascal. Is this a fatal flaw? Depends on your | >point of view. It is definitely fatal in a professional, production | >environment. +--------------- For all practical purposes, there *is* no such thing as Standard Pascal. The ISO Pascal standard and Jensen/Wirth both define a language which lacks just about everything needed for real-world applications. So I can't port the program I wrote in the TOPS-20 ``souped-up Touretzki'' Pascal compiler to Turbo pascal? Well, I can't port it to Berkeley ``pc'' either. And maybe not even to VAX Pascal. Turbo Pascal has *finally* defined a practical standard for Pascal. Don't knock it. +--------------- | >2. A lack of a batch mode for compiles. Ever try to run Turbo Prolog from | make? | | Ever try to run anybody else's Prolog from make? Correct me if I'm | wrong, but I thought Borlands was the ONLY Prolog compiler and that all | other implementations of Prolog were essentially interpreters, this | being necessary to allow for the so-called "metalinguistic" features, | the lack of which causes the hard-core AI freaks to decry TurboProlog | the way they do. Have I missed something? +--------------- You can't run Turbo Pascal in batch mode, either. But the data sheet from Borland, as posted on the net, says that Turbo C *can* be used in Makefiles. (Standard Pascal doesn't make sense in Makefiles, anyway. Pascal doesn't support multiple modules, guys! Even Turbo's {$I filename.ext} directive is non-standard. +--------------- | >3. Bugs. I found several in Turbo Prolog, just screwing around for a day or | >so (V1.0). Borland was nice enough to send me 1.1 unsolicited, but I haven't | >verified that the bugs are gone. Why go with a new, untested product when there | >are mature products around? | | The $100 price tag, speed (the up side of a compiled Prolog), module | connectivity with other Turbo Languages, the good turtle graphics | system, Philippe Kahn's winning smile...... By the way, have you ever | gotten free upgrades to any other software products unsolicited? I know | I never have. +--------------- So Version 1.0 of *any* product won't have bugs? Also, Prolog is not what I would call a compileable language. That it can be done at all is surprising. +--------------- | >1. MSC 4.0. Love codeview (but it has annoying bugs!), love the extensive | >library. Code generation good to excellent. I haven't found any library bugs | >myself, but supposedly if malloc fails, it will sometimes clobber DS. | >ROM support sucks - regardless of the source they give you to startup. +--------------- See the recent discussion on MSC license policy. Borland doesn't restrict your rights with programs compiled using their products. Like h*ll I'm going to stick a *Microsoft* copyright on my whiz-bang program compiled with MSC -- *I* wrote the part of the program that does the interesting stuff. I am very much looking forward to Turbo C. In the meantime, I use Turbo Pascal for everything (including work on a rewrite of uuslave.c, via an assembler hook to access the com ports directly; the DOS drivers are worse than useless). And consider also that for another $50, you can buy the heart of a DBMS (!) written in Turbo Pascal (the Turbo Database Toolbox). Try getting C-ISAM at that price (worse, try getting Ingres). Borland is changing the nature of commercial software. Kudos to Phillipe Kahn for providing a system better than $400 packages (i.e. Turbo Pascal) for $50! ++Brandon -- ``for is he not of the Children of Luthien? Never shall that line fail, though the years may lengthen beyond count.'' --J. R. R. Tolkien Brandon S. Allbery UUCP: cbatt!cwruecmp!ncoast!tdi2!brandon Tridelta Industries, Inc. CSNET: ncoast!allbery@Case 7350 Corporate Blvd. INTERNET: ncoast!allbery%Case.CSNET@relay.CS.NET Mentor, Ohio 44060 PHONE: +1 216 255 1080 (home) +1 216 974 9210