Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site gumby.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!uwvax!gumby!g-frank From: g-frank@gumby.UUCP Newsgroups: net.lang.c Subject: Re: Pascal vs. C Message-ID: <250@gumby.UUCP> Date: Tue, 15-Jan-85 10:18:28 EST Article-I.D.: gumby.250 Posted: Tue Jan 15 10:18:28 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 16-Jan-85 05:48:37 EST References: <4859@utzoo.UUCP> <11@mit-athena.ARPA> <177@gcc-opus.ARPA> <7055@brl-tgr.ARPA> <25@seismo.UUCP> <6283@boring.UUCP> Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept Lines: 32 > In article <25@seismo.UUCP> keith@seismo.UUCP (Keith Bostic) writes: > > Come on -- let's not start a PASCAL vs. C debate, okay? > Quite. But then why say more? > > > Pascal in its standard form is simply not useable for anything except cute > > little application programs. > I'm not the world's greatest Pascal fan, but this is just not true! I've > seen many large useful programs written in standard Pascal, and written well. > > Steven Pemberton, CWI, Amsterdam. This discussion is a little stacked. No one really thinks that ISO Pascal IS good for anything except cute little application programs. That's why everyone and his sister and brother and major professor is out selling some souped-up variant of the language. This makes it almost impossible to discuss "Pascal" vs. anything. The better comparison is Modula-2 vs. C. The language attempts to address the same kinds of goals (i.e., systems programming, operating systems) while preserving strong typing and adding other advanced concepts (modularity, monitors, coroutines, etc.). It is also a standard, so discussions don't have to center on whose implementation does that thing you just said the language didn't do. Modula-2 is a much better answer to the old, "but strongly typed languages are so INFLEXIBLE" chestnut. -- Dan Frank "good news is just life's way of keeping you off balance."