Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!apple!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!encore!cloud9!cme
From: cme@cloud9.UUCP (Carl Ellison)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Pascal dying out?
Summary: real programmers don't eat quiche
	 ..or use PASCAL
Keywords: 20 years, TRUE?
Message-ID: <2130@cloud9.UUCP>
Date: 19 Oct 88 13:54:08 GMT
References: <267@lafcol.UUCP> <1525@netmbx.UUCP>
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc., Marlboro, MA
Lines: 25

In article <1525@netmbx.UUCP>, alderaan@netmbx.UUCP (Thomas Cervera) writes:
> Yes, I think pascal will die out, because unlike in C, you cannot produce
> such garbage source codes. Pascal is too restrictive. In my opinion, this is
> a great feature of Pascal, but how to tell this a UNIX/C programmer ?

I agree that this is a great feature -- and not just for novice programmers.
When my code gets big enough (eg., 30000 lines or more), I need to be
protected from myself.

I'm careful -- but as the professor in my first system programming class
pointed out:  the first 20 minutes of coding on a new project are creation;
everything after that is modification -- so design your code to be easy to
modify!

Unfortunately, it's not just UNIX/C programmers who are afraid of being
accused of being sub-human if they use a language which does anything to
try to keep them out of trouble.  I've heard it from many sources -- 
including a system programmer who codes in PL/I (of all things).

As far as I can tell, this is a psychological problem -- akin to the need
to be macho -- and probably unsolvable.  :-(


--Carl Ellison          ...!harvard!anvil!es!cme    (normal mail address)
                        ...!ulowell!cloud9!cme      (usenet news reading)