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From: siegel@endor.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal,comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Problems with Lightspeed Pascal 2.0
Message-ID: <3476@husc6.harvard.edu>
Date: 22 Dec 89 22:13:20 GMT
References: <1714@rex.cs.tulane.edu>
Sender: news@husc6.harvard.edu
Reply-To: siegel@endor.UUCP (Rich Siegel)
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Organization: Symantec Language Products Group
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In article <1714@rex.cs.tulane.edu> mb@rex.cs.tulane.edu (Mark Benard) writes:
>
>The problems I am having are all associated with pointer errors.  When one of
>my students misuses a pointer, it often corrupts the project so that the
>project has to be completely reconstructed from scratch with new copies of
>the libraries;  if it is not completely reconstructed, the rebuilt program
>gives 'nil reference' errors even after the pointer errors have been
>corrected.  Often it is even worse - the compiler itself is corrupted.  I did

	Unfortunately, misuse of pointers on a non-memory-protected system
like the Mac will often cause havoc, and it's not an issue related to the 
compiler; if the programs were run in standalone mode, they could very
well corrupt the system or smash disk structures in irreparable ways.

	To protect yourself, you might try running THINK Pascal on a
hardware-locked disk; this would prevent it from getting smashed. I
can't think of any protection agains gratuitous use of bad pointers,
though.

R.

k


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Rich Siegel
 Staff Software Developer
 Symantec Corporation, Language Products Group
 Internet: siegel@endor.harvard.edu
 UUCP: ..harvard!endor!siegel

"When someone who makes four hundred and fifty dollars an hour wants to
tell you something for free, it's a good idea to listen."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~