Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!dlyons
From: dlyons@Apple.COM (David Lyons)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Pcode(sort of) and Higher education
Message-ID: <32345@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 10 Jun 89 02:26:21 GMT
References: <8906080121.aa17507@SMOKE.BRL.MIL>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 35

In article <8906080121.aa17507@SMOKE.BRL.MIL> MSER001@ECNCDC.BITNET writes:
>P-code; for some reason I always equate P with Pascal.  I know this is not
>what P-code actually is, but it still brings up the Nasty smell of the
>tight "type" pascal!

There are *times* when I wish Pascal would just let me do what I want to
do without forcing me to make an explicit type cast.  But there are also
times when I wish C would complain rather than letting me do something
extremely stupid.  (ANSI C will take care of most of these cases, though.)

>[...]
>but wonder if Pascal should be taught in Higher education, since this
>"teaching" leaks out into the real world.  If it had some features that
>were good for something other than getting a point across, maybe I could
>be shot down.

Hmmm...I find Pascal very easy to read and write and also very usable.  I
wrote DIcEd completely in TML Pascal, for example, and I didn't usually
feel I was fighting against the language to do it.

>[...] Whats a Begin anyway, other than an over-
>stated {.

There's pretty much equivalent, although "{"..."}" in C gives you a chance
to declare stuff local to a small block of code without breaking it out
into a separate function.

 --Dave Lyons, Apple Computer, Inc.          |   DAL Systems
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