hgoldber@polyob.UUCP (A1 harry goldberg ) (02/20/86)
*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE *** would like to know if there is a modula 2 compiler for the dec 11/70 and the att 3b2 and 3b5 machines. i would also like to hear pros and cons on using modula2 as a first language to teach programming as we are considering a switch from pl/i to ???? here at poly. iguana!polyof!polob!hgoldber
mazlack@ERNIE.BERKELEY.EDU (Lawrence J. Mazlack) (02/24/86)
I can't help you with the compiler.
But, I do think that M2 is a good first language.
(1) It has a relatively limited syntex and thus is easy to learn.
(2) It is highly structured, and thus helps with teaching structured programming
(3) Almost all the pro-Pascal arguments work for M2
(4) M2 has the advantage over Pascal in that it can have separately
compiled and stored modules (=procedures = functions)
The disadvantages are:
(1) Limited I/O capability (a little better than Pascal, not as good as PL/1)
(2) Poor string handling capability (about the same as Pascal)
...Larry Mazlack
mazlack@ernie.edu