Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!motcid!kraus
From: kraus@cell.mot.COM (David Kraus)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Looking for GOOD optimizing compilers for MS-DOS
Message-ID: <1388@grape2.UUCP>
Date: 26 Feb 90 23:20:05 GMT
References: <9311@portia.Stanford.EDU> <1541@maytag.waterloo.edu> <21125@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <1551@maytag.waterloo.edu> <25E647B3.438@paris.ics.uci.edu>
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Organization: Motorola Inc. - Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Heights, IL 60004
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In article <25E647B3.438@paris.ics.uci.edu> milne@ics.uci.edu (Alastair Milne) writes:
>   It has been 3 or 4 years since my experience with Microsoft Pascal, so it
>   may be out of date (I am not considering QuickPascal in any case), but the
>   last time I had to use it, it was very big (two passes in separate
>   programs, and yet a third if you wanted compile listings), slow, subject to
>   large error cascades, and produced huge files -- this of course in
>   collaboration with the Microsoft linker, which was horribly slow.  The
>   resulting EXE's were huge.  In fact, I consulted the net at the time to see
>   if anybody could tell me how to reduce them.

It hasn't changed, at least as of 9 months ago.  I was using the Microsoft
Pascal compiler (whatever the current version at that time was) and it was an
absolute dog.  (Granted, I came from a mostly TP background.)  The compiles
were slow, the EXEs were large, and the error messages left something to be
desired as well.

The company (which I no longer work for) was (and still are, from what I hear)
in the process of switching to Turbo, if for no other reason than to increase
programmer productivity and vendor support.

Trying to get support from Microsoft for their Pascal product was interesting,
at best, although I wasn't the one communicating with them.  (I heard some
horror stories from those that were, though.)  It basically boiled down to the
fact that Microsoft SEEMED (giving them the benefit of the doubt) to be
phasing out the Pascal product in favor of C.  In fact, there were some
questions of 'how do you do this' where the answer was simply, 'switch to C.'
(The 'how do you do this' question, I believe, could have been done trivially
in Turbo, although it was a while ago and my memory fades...)

I had the opportunity, while at this company, to write a small (< 2000 lines)
demo program for an upcoming product.  Everyone was amazed at how quickly I
could make changes to the code to fit their whims.  (Change this color, move
this over here, etc.)  And executing the program from within the IDE was a
concept they'd never heard of before....

Anyway, as you said, the Microsoft product (full-blown version, anyway) leaves
a lot to be desired, compared to Turbo.


Disclaimer - I of course have nothing to do with Borland other than being a
satisfied customer.  I also have as little as possible to do with Microsoft.

-- 
Dave Kraus                                         UUCP: ...!uunet!motcid!kraus
Motorola Cellular Infrastructure Division          FidoNet: 115/444.11
Disclaimer: I'd be more than a bit surprised if Motorola shared these opinions.