afoiani@dante.nmsu.EDU (Anthony Foiani) (06/30/89)
I was thinking about the Turbo Pascal vs. ANSI Pascal controversy, and
this is what I came up with:
If you are instructing people in pascal, why are you teaching them the
language? So they can create useful, efficient programs, usually.
Secondly, what truely defines the standard? The anSi (quote) standard
(endquote) or the *industry* standard?
It seems more logical to me to teach the industry standard. Look at
the C language; ansi defined a standard in 1986 (?) and our site still
doesn't have a system that supports it (gcc does, I believe, but that
is about it.)
If there were a streamlined, adequate-interface, efficient ANSI pascal
compiler available, that produced fast, tight code.... it would be
acceptable. But, before demanding on "standard" pascal, look at what
turbo *does* have:
graphics (which you would need to write and interface)
integrated environment (lotsa luck with generic software...)
fast compile/execute, with no need to muck w/ LINK etc.
small overhead (v5.0 is only 160k... v3.1, which is suitable for
education purposes, is only about 40k)
easy commands (v5 has menus, v3 command keys...)
industry base. (I am relatively sure that Turbo has more purchasers
than MS Pascal, IBM Pascal, etc...)
These are, of course just thoughts. It is not ment as a flame (as
such). Just take a look at the "real" (grin) world before saying
"If it's not the standard, I'm not using it"
Dementedly yours,
--
tony foiani (afoiani@nmsu.edu) "And remember...don't lose your
(mcsajf@nmsuvm1.bitnet) head..." -The Kurgan, HIGHLANDERdik@cwi.nl (Dik T. Winter) (07/01/89)
In article <AFOIANI.89Jun29233610@dante.nmsu.EDU> afoiani@dante.nmsu.EDU (Anthony Foiani) writes: > I was thinking about the Turbo Pascal vs. ANSI Pascal controversy, and > this is what I came up with: > > If you are instructing people in pascal, why are you teaching them the > language? So they can create useful, efficient programs, usually. > Secondly, what truely defines the standard? The anSi (quote) standard > (endquote) or the *industry* standard? Not only useful and efficient, but also portable. > > It seems more logical to me to teach the industry standard. Look at > the C language; ansi defined a standard in 1986 (?) and our site still > doesn't have a system that supports it (gcc does, I believe, but that > is about it.) Seeing that C is still in the proposed standard stage.... Most likely it will be a standard in 1990, so there are still no standard C compilers. And there are more compilers than gcc that conform to the proposed C standard. > > If there were a streamlined, adequate-interface, efficient ANSI pascal > compiler available, that produced fast, tight code.... it would be > acceptable. But, before demanding on "standard" pascal, look at what > turbo *does* have: But none of the systems I use have Turbo Pascal. And some of them have streamlined etc. Also industry standard does *not* mean a standard by a single company (unless it is a three letter company), but a version that is widely used by a (large) number of companies. In general if you want to instruct a language, stick to the (a) standard as much as possible, and if you cannot avoid to use non-standard extensions, clearly mark them as such. Unless you want your students to get a big surprise when they move to another system. -- dik t. winter, cwi, amsterdam, nederland INTERNET : dik@cwi.nl BITNET/EARN: dik@mcvax
dan@oresoft.uu.net (Daniel Elbaum) (07/04/89)
For the record, the ANSI committee's still working on a C standard;
at the moment, none exists.
--
The workaday world must remain transparent to those who maintain it if
they are to find inspired within them a vision of the history they create.
({uunet,tektronix,reed,sun!nosun,osu-cis,psu-cs}!oresoft!(dan)@oresoft.uu.net)shankar@hpclscu.HP.COM (Shankar Unni) (07/10/89)
> It seems more logical to me to teach the industry standard. Look at > the C language; ansi defined a standard in 1986 (?) and our site still > doesn't have a system that supports it (gcc does, I believe, but that > is about it.) (a) The ANSI C standard has yet to be published. The "final" draft went up to X3 earlier this year (1989), but is being kicked around in a game of procedural football. Expect it out there "real soon". (b) Many of the compilers out there have most of the features of ANSI C, including function prototypes. GCC is only one of them. Of course, few compilers can claim to be fully "ANSI-compliant" at this point (and not just because of (a) - there are really very few standard validation suites at this point), but you can be sure that in a year or two, most of the serious C compilers out there will be standards- compliant. ---- Shankar Unni. shankar@hpda.hp.com