Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site sdcc3.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcc3!dwa From: dwa@sdcc3.UUCP (Don Anderson) Newsgroups: net.lang.mod2 Subject: Standards for libraries Message-ID: <2588@sdcc3.UUCP> Date: Mon, 24-Dec-84 13:13:06 EST Article-I.D.: sdcc3.2588 Posted: Mon Dec 24 13:13:06 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 27-Dec-84 02:39:31 EST Organization: U.C. San Diego, Academic Computer Center Lines: 28 [] I am in the process of revising my graphics course to teach it with Modula-2 as the programming language to be used. After allowing complete anarchy this year, I decided that I needed to confine the class to a single language so that I could read the source code. Only C, Modula and Ada had the features that I wanted, and for reasons that are not relevant here, I chose Modula. Presently, this means using the Powell (DEC-WRL) compiler which comes with some very attractive but not entirely standard support libraries. As I would like to have the students write packages that they could use in other situations (particularly in microcomputer environments) I'd like to make them use calls which are as standard as possible. I wrote a version of InOut on top of Powell's io module, and I am prepared to write whatever else is considered "standard". My question to the net: are there *any* standards which meet the criterion of portability from system to system? I am not interested in knowing about this or that compiler's nifty library (except possibly as a programming exercise for the students) - I am interested in knowing what can be expected to exist for all "standard" Modula-2 environments (and I am interested in knowing what various people mean by "standard"). Presently, I am familiar only with the Powell compiler and the Volition compiler, but I will be getting some micros in so that we can test out some of the other compilers for evaluation as teaching environments. -don anderson -professor of mathematics & coordinator, academic computing, ucsd