Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!amdcad!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mcvax!unido!tub!tmpmbx!netmbx!alderaan
From: alderaan@netmbx.UUCP (Thomas Cervera)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Pascal dying out?
Message-ID: <1539@netmbx.UUCP>
Date: 18 Oct 88 09:40:55 GMT
References: <267@lafcol.UUCP> <460@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>
Organization: netmbx Public Access Unix, Berlin, West Germany
Lines: 38

In article <460@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>, kolb@handel.colostate.edu. (Denny Kolb - Professor of Existential Metaphysics ) writes:
> 
> [...] I doubt
> that many, if any, companies involved in large programming projects are actively
> using Pascal in their Day-to-Day programming activities.  There are several
> reasons for this, but primarily, Pascal lacks most of the file handling 
> capabilities that are essential for any kind of realistic software package.  

But for what do you use external procedure libraries ? Powerful File handling
is nearly not existant in Pascal, but this is not the reason why nobody uses
this language. Hand on heart, would change to C for such a reason ? For my 
person, I extended an RT11/OMSI-Pascal with such procedures as lookup, copy,
delete, seek, .. So, Pascal now is quite useable, also for data base projects
(as we're currently working on).
On Technical University Berlin, they use Pascal to teach timesharing program-
ming.

> 
>   There is a language called Modula-II which was also written by N. Wirth, that
> does have these file-handling routines, and other such stuff.  I have never
> written in M-II, but people who have tell me that it has a syntax that is
> very similar to Pascal.  Modula-II still tends to be somewhat obscure, so I
> have no idea if it has an industial following or not.
> 

MII is much more than a new version of Pascal. Especially the modularity
of this language (where the name comes from), helps you to just enjoy this
language. BTW, it is even better for big projects (industrial programming).

--

alderaan
OP RKOpdp (RSTS/E)
FB Mathematik/Informatik
RKO Berlin

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