Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!bellcore!texbell!petro!swrinde!kent
From: kent@swrinde.nde.swri.edu (Kent D. Polk)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Wanted:  Opinions on PASCAL and MOD-2 compilers
Message-ID: <12099@swrinde.nde.swri.edu>
Date: 21 Mar 89 20:06:56 GMT
References: <1496@PSUECLB> <9540@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>
Reply-To: kent@swrinde.UUCP (Kent D. Polk)
Organization: Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas
Lines: 36

In article <9540@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> richarr@nikola.UUCP (Robert Steven Richardson) writes:
>In article <1496@PSUECLB> peg@psueclb.BITNET writes:
>>Has anyone seen Pecan Mod-2 ?  How does it compare to Benchmark, TDI,
>>etc.?
>
>I have the old version of MCC Pascal.  It lacks serious string support
>or access to libraries, but it works well and is reliable.  The new
>version (which I have not seen), is supposed to fix this, but I have
>not found an outlet in the states.
>

I have MCC Pascal V.1.25 also. I wouldn't quite say it is reliable though.
'With' miscalculates record field offsets, particularly when one is assigning
a function return value to a record field variable inside a 'with' block. In
general it has problems with any record structures that aren't very simple
(records of records, etc.). I have one program which, while attempting to
compile, crashes the machine so bad that Kickstart can't even reboot - I have
to turn the machine off. I also heard, but have not tested that it has
problems with 'real' calculations.

On the other hand, for simple Pascal programs, it is pretty nice & compiles
VERY quickly. I've been on the verge of upgrading to 2.0 for about 3 mos now,
but wish I could determine if the record structure handling has been fixed.
I'll probably go ahead & order it sometime this week. Maybe will report on
its status if there is any interest.

Also, I heard a rumor that it could make use of the 'C' include files for
Amiga-specific stuff - though I'm skeptical on this matter.

re serious string support:
  What happened to building your own string library 8^).

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       Kent Polk - Southwest Research Institute
 {cs.utexas.edu, gatech!petro sun!texsun}!swrinde!kent
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