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From: usenet@cps3xx.UUCP (Usenet file owner)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: VAX Pascal
Message-ID: <3163@cps3xx.UUCP>
Date: 26 May 89 16:20:06 GMT
References: <3466@tank.uchicago.edu>
Reply-To: rang@cpsin3.cps.msu.edu (Anton Rang)
Organization: Michigan State University, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 56

In article <3466@tank.uchicago.edu> dwayne@rover.bsd.uchicago.edu writes:
>Hey!!!! Are there any VAX Pascal programmers outthere????

  Yep, one at least.  We don't come into this group too much 'cause
there are all these questions about toy Pascal compilers :-) .

>    1) Optimization.  Have you ever had a program work when compiled
>    	/no-optimize but not otherwise.

  Yes, on occasion.  Usually I take the time to track down the cause
and SPR it to DEC.  The worst one I ever helped track down had to do
with conformant arrays--the compiler was optimizing 1-1 to be 2 in
some cases (!).
  Generally, though, I find the compiler to be very good.  I haven't
run into any bugs in the last year or so (though I haven't been doing
as much programming either).

>    3) Directives.  Does anyone know what all of the VAX compiler
>    	directives really do?

  Well, I've used all of them at one time or another, I think.  Most
of them aren't really that complicated.  I do wish sometimes that I
could add [VOLATILE] to "output":

	program fred(input, [volatile]output)

so that I don't get warnings if I want to write anything out in an
AST.  (At least, when I know output is s'posed to be the terminal.)

>    4) Resource sharing.  ANSI standard Pascal is aweful for 
>    	sharing anything.  But VAX has a lot of power actually.
>    	(This is what I do, by the way)

  You mean, in terms of file stuff, or memory, or what?  File sharing
is great!  Sharing data structures using a global section is nice too;
some friends of mine are working on a multi-user star trek game which
runs in real-time using a (huge) shared data structure.

>There are all sorts of things that can be discussed about other
>implementations of Pascal.  So let me know if there is anybody
>out there, before I unsubscibe (after 6 mos.) also.

  Well, I'm here...having fun with Apple ][ (UCSD) Pascal, VMS Pascal,
and (soon) LightSpeed [or is it Think now?] Pascal on the Mac.  And
occasionally fighting with the stupid 'pc' on UNIX systems which isn't
really Pascal, but which people out here seem to think defines the
standard (ugh!)....

>Dwayne Spradlin



+---------------------------+------------------------+
| Anton Rang (grad student) | "VMS Forever!"         |
| Michigan State University | rang@cpswh.cps.msu.edu |
+---------------------------+------------------------+