Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ut-sally!husc6!sri-unix!quintus!ok
From: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Pascal Enumerated I/O
Message-ID: <681@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Date: 22 Feb 88 10:37:20 GMT
References: <11903@brl-adm.ARPA> <673@cresswell.quintus.UUCP> <1077@csuna.UUCP>
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Mountain View, CA
Lines: 17

In article <1077@csuna.UUCP>, abcscnuk@csuna.UUCP (Naoto Kimura) writes:
> In article <673@cresswell.quintus.UUCP> ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
> As someone has already stated, I/O of enumerated types is contradictory to
> the policy of strong typing.   Output of boolean values was probably allowed
> because they are used quite often.   And anyway, I wouldn't go classifying
> booleans as an enumerated type, as they behave differently.

(1) Booleans in Pascal are exactly the same as any other enumerated type,
    except for having some built-in operators.  In fact, Boolean isn't a
    reserved word, it's just a type declared in the block surrounding the
    program.

(2) I/O of enumerated types is contrary to the policy of strong typing?
    Sorry, I just can't see that.  Forcing the programmer to work in terms
    of Ord() values, now *that* is contrary to the policy of string
    typing.  I guess the designers of ADA agree with me and the original
    poster, because ADA provides a built-in package ENUMERATION_IO.