Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!uoregon!lth
From: lth@uoregon.uoregon.edu (Lars Thomas Hansen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Where are the pascal jobs?
Summary: some people don't know what they're talking about...
Keywords: crypticism
Message-ID: <4764@uoregon.uoregon.edu>
Date: 26 May 89 05:52:24 GMT
References: <May.11.21.48.07.1989.11277@galaxy.rutgers.edu> <695@bbking.KSP.Unisys.COM> <6787@cbnews.ATT.COM> <14080@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Reply-To: lth@drizzle.UUCP (Lars Thomas Hansen)
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Oregon, Computer Science, Eugene OR
Lines: 19

In article <14080@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> c289-ch@seymour.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Class Account) writes:
$}But, there isreally atrivial difference between C, PASCAL, etc.  If I 
$}interviewed at a firm, and they were concerned if I knew C rather than
$}PASCAL, I would think this is a petty, short-sighted firm.
$
$Well, there is quite a difference you see.  If you are use to writing in pascal,
$your code will be clear and understandable, whereas if you are use to C, then
$your code will be much more cryptic and hard to debug.

This is easily the most ignorant remark I've heard in a long time. I claim
- and expect to be believed - that nothing stops you from writing C code that
is at least readable and maintainable as the equivalent Pascal code. I do it
all the time.

However, there IS quite a difference between Pascal and C -- C lets you do
what you want to do when you need to do it. Pascal doesn't, in a lot of cases.


--lars