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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