Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncr-sd!hp-sdd!hplabs!ucbvax!TAURUS.BITNET!zifrony
From: zifrony@TAURUS.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Pascal dying out?
Keywords: Pascal, Macintosh, serious programming
Message-ID: <898@taurus.BITNET>
Date: 17 Nov 88 17:19:47 GMT
References: <267@lafcol.UUCP> <9631@swan.ulowell.edu> <93@maths.tcd.ie>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: zifrony%virgo.UUCP@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (Zifrony Doron)
Organization: Tel-Aviv Univesity Math and CS school, Israel
Lines: 48

In article <93@maths.tcd.ie> gwills@maths.tcd.ie (Graham Wills) writes:
>In article <9631@swan.ulowell.edu> sbrunnoc@hawk.ulowell.edu (Sean Brunnock) wr
>>
>>  I don't believe that Pascal is used much by serious programmers
>>developers anymore, thank/blame C for that.
>
>You are wrong. Pascal is still very much used by serious programmers.
...
>
>1) Pascal is a nice language. It is (and I don't think anyone disagrees with
>   this) an ideal language to learn programming with.
>2) It is not easy or quick to work with standard Pascal filing methods -
>   If you need to do serious work, get libraries. I use the standard Mac
>   routines, so I can load in records, windows, arrays as binary files with
>   two or three lines of code, and very quickly. This (and rigorous typing -
>   which is annoying) is its worst defect for the serious programmer.
>3) C is a much more flexible language (hopefully this is indisputable).
>   This is both good and bad. It is good in that more compact, subtle code
>   is possible, and bad in that you can write overly subtle, unreadable code.
>   For a well-disciplined programmer this is no problem. For most of us, it is.
>
>In summary, I use Pascal happily all the time, hate doing filing using it, but
>prefer it because it is very readable, simple and keeps me on the rails as
>regards readability, modifiability and structuredness. With C I tend to hack.
>

  I agree with Graham.  If you need to produce a large system, where many
programmers are working together, Pascal is a much better language to
accomplish such things as clarity, readability, maintainability, etc' then
many other languages.  In addition, the strength of Pascal in producing
unlimited number of data structures, its use of pointers - restrictive
enough so to prevent you from making foolish mistakes, and the sets put it
as my primary choice for implementation language.

  As most Pascal compilers extend the language by adding an "otherwise"
clause in a case statement, and some add string manipulation, it is fair
for most applications (file I/O can be handled, most of the times, by
system call routines).

  I have worked in a private company, where a certain product was developed
in Pascal.  I have no doubts that doing it in C would have lengthen the
development time.

Doron Zifrony                   - zifrony@taurus.bitnet or
Msc student                       zifrony@MATH.Tau.Ac.IL
Department of Computer Science
Tel Aviv University
Israel