galvinp@lafcol.UUCP (Galvin Paul ) (10/13/88)
Hello, This my first message, so please be nice to me.... I am at Lafayette College as a sophomore and there is a certain element that seems to think that Pascal is dying out. They say that in 20 years, it will be long gone. Is there any basis for this? I hardly see anyone who is in the business of writing programs or such and I would not be able to determine the truth of this. Thanx --Paul J. Galvin
sbrunnoc@hawk.ulowell.edu (Sean Brunnock) (10/14/88)
From article <267@lafcol.UUCP>, by galvinp@lafcol.UUCP (Galvin Paul ): > > I am at Lafayette College as a sophomore and there is a certain > element that seems to think that Pascal is dying out. They say that > in 20 years, it will be long gone. I don't believe that Pascal is used much by serious programmers developers anymore, thank/blame C for that. But Pascal is still perfect for its originally intended purpose: teaching the elements of computer programming to students. It is still my language of choice for school assignments or professional programming. Sean Brunnock
rmarks@KSP.Unisys.COM (Richard Marks) (10/14/88)
In article <267@lafcol.UUCP> galvinp@lafcol.UUCP (Galvin Paul ) writes: >there is a certain element that seems to think that Pascal is dying out. >They say that in 20 years, it will be long gone. > >Is there any basis for this? I hardly see anyone who is in the >business of writing programs or such and I would not be able to >determine the truth of this. Boy will this start a discussion. I want to put in my 2 cents. Before I turn flames on let me say that I Pascal is my language of preference and I do a lot of coding in it. Note however that there is a factor of ten more messages in the "c" newsgroup as compared to the "pascal" group. But when I look at the "c" group I keep laughing at the semantic and syntactic bullshit the questions are about. Most of the crap they ask about is covered transparently in pascal. Honestly who wants to get involved in if a declaration should be func (**int(*char)) or not? But face it guys, pascal is really not portable. How many lines of Turbo P do we have that will never get to Unix. I think pascal was really little used, except in college courses, until Borland gave us TurboP. Now that we also have Turbo C and since "c" will run on almost any box, "c" will swamp pascal. Now what will happen if Borland gives us pascal on Unix ?? Richard Marks rmarks@KSP.unisys.COM
kolb@handel.colostate.edu. (Denny Kolb - Professor of Existential Metaphysics ) (10/15/88)
In article <267@lafcol.UUCP> galvinp@lafcol.UUCP (Galvin Paul ) writes: > >.....there is a certain >element that seems to think that Pascal is dying out. They say that >in 20 years, it will be long gone. > >Is there any basis for this? I don't really see anything that would justify that kind of pessimism. I have been hearing for at least 10 years now, that FORTRAN is destined for the 'scrap heap of computerdom', but at last report, it is comming along quite well. Granted, as a 'real world', production language, Pascal leaves much to be desired. However, Pascal was never intended for an environment such as that. Pascal is first and formost, a teaching language, and as such it has no equal. (Would you REALLY want to learn 'C' as a First Language???) I am currently teaching the Intro Pascal course here at CSU, and as a first language Pascal does remarkably well. Pascal enables the student to learn the various laguage constructs, such as Looping, Selection, Arrays, Data Abstraction, etc. Without having to learn all of the extraneous garbage that generally go along with them in a more conventional language. >I hardly see anyone who is in the >business of writing programs or such and I would not be able to >determine the truth of this. I am a little confused as to what you mean by 'in the business', but I assume that you are refering to the more 'real world' sorts of programming here. If this is true, then in this area, I think Pascal is already gone. I doubt that many, if any, companies involved in large programming projects are actively using Pascal in their Day-to-Day programming activities. There are several reasons for this, but primarily, Pascal lacks most of the file handling capabilities that are essential for any kind of realistic software package. There is a language called Modula-II which was also written by N. Wirth, that does have these file-handling routines, and other such stuff. I have never written in M-II, but people who have tell me that it has a syntax that is very similar to Pascal. Modula-II still tends to be somewhat obscure, so I have no idea if it has an industial following or not. Well, I've rambled on for long enough. Hope this clears up your confusion. Regards, Denny
lear@NET.BIO.NET (Eliot Lear) (10/16/88)
I do note that my own alma mater has been considering switching from Pascal to LISP for their introductory CS courses. I don't know if this typifies other universities. -- Eliot Lear [lear@net.bio.net]
usenet@cps3xx.UUCP (Usenet file owner) (10/16/88)
In article <641@bbking.ksp.unisys.com>, Richard Marks (rmarks@ksp.unisys.com) writes: >In article <267@lafcol.UUCP> galvinp@lafcol.UUCP (Galvin Paul ) writes: >>there is a certain element that seems to think that Pascal is dying out. >>They say that in 20 years, it will be long gone. > > [stuff about the real world and Pascal vs. C deleted] > >But face it guys, pascal is really not portable. How many lines of >Turbo P do we have that will never get to Unix. I think pascal was >really little used, except in college courses, until Borland gave us >TurboP. Now that we also have Turbo C and since "c" will run on >almost any box, "c" will swamp pascal. I think there's a point here which should be clarified. C, as a *language*, is relatively portable; i.e., if you avoid things like assuming ints and pointers are the same size, your program will probably compile correctly on another machine. However, no real program is useful without making lots of operating system calls. C and UNIX are pretty much inseparable, because they're both have totally obscure syntax and weird semantics (:-). However, the semantics of UNIX system calls differ enough from machine to machine (and even OS release to OS release) that it's unlikely you can write a reasonable C application with a nice user interface without using non-standard features (thus rendering it non-portable). You might as well use Pascal with non-standard features (VAX Pascal is excellent, and UCSD isn't too bad--I haven't used Turbo much, but some of my friends like it). A good article on this is in IEEE CompCon '86, called "The Portability of UNIX Application Programs And Other Modern Folk Tales." It isn't even UNIX-bashing! (Not that there's anything wrong with that!) Just my thoughts.... +----------------------------------+------------------------+ | Anton Rang (grad student) | "UNIX: Just Say No!" | | Michigan State University | rang@cpswh.cps.msu.edu | +----------------------------------+------------------------+
alderaan@netmbx.UUCP (Thomas Cervera) (10/16/88)
Yes, I think pascal will die out, because unlike in C, you cannot produce such garbage source codes. Pascal is too restrictive. In my opinion, this is a great feature of Pascal, but how to tell this a UNIX/C programmer ? So, because UNIX will spread out over the world like a cancerous tumor, even MODULA II (much better than Pascal) won't have a chance ... -- alderaan OP RKOpdp (RSTS/E) FB Mathematik/Informatik RKO Berlin Dieffenbachstrasze 60-61 1000 Berlin 61 UNIX -- just say NO ! (remke)
gilstrap@hpcupt1.HP.COM (Tom Gilstrap) (10/17/88)
You may be surprised at the number of people that would much rather write in Pascal vs. C or ??. As far as "real world" uses, Hewlett Packard's MPE XL operating system is written in Pascal. I guess if Pascal dies in 20 years, I'll have plenty to do resurecting all of my "dead" code. [ job security ;-) ]
art@buengc.BU.EDU (A. R. Thompson) (10/18/88)
In article <Oct.15.15.05.30.1988.7177@NET.BIO.NET> lear@NET.BIO.NET (Eliot Lear) writes: >I do note that my own alma mater has been considering switching from >Pascal to LISP for their introductory CS courses. I don't know if >this typifies other universities. >-- Here at the College of Engineering we teach Pascal as the student's introduction to computation on the grounds that it provides a better basis for understanding the solution of problems than do languages that have too many machine dependencies and other vagaries. I have advocated (so far unsuccessfully) that our students should learn LISP as the second course in computing. Now we follow the introductory Pascal with a semester of numerical analysis using Pascal. This is important knowlege for engineers, I admit, but my rationale for following up Pascal with LISP is that the students will immediately learn a method of programming that is based on a different paradigm (functional vs Von Neumann). I relly think that the beginning students will benefit enormaously from this different view.
numork@ndsuvax.UUCP (James Mork) (10/18/88)
Intro courses here have switched to Modula-2.
--
UUCP Bitnet Internet
uunet!ndsuvax!numork numork@ndsuvax numork@plains.nodak.edu alderaan@netmbx.UUCP (Thomas Cervera) (10/18/88)
In article <460@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>, kolb@handel.colostate.edu. (Denny Kolb - Professor of Existential Metaphysics ) writes: > > [...] I doubt > that many, if any, companies involved in large programming projects are actively > using Pascal in their Day-to-Day programming activities. There are several > reasons for this, but primarily, Pascal lacks most of the file handling > capabilities that are essential for any kind of realistic software package. But for what do you use external procedure libraries ? Powerful File handling is nearly not existant in Pascal, but this is not the reason why nobody uses this language. Hand on heart, would change to C for such a reason ? For my person, I extended an RT11/OMSI-Pascal with such procedures as lookup, copy, delete, seek, .. So, Pascal now is quite useable, also for data base projects (as we're currently working on). On Technical University Berlin, they use Pascal to teach timesharing program- ming. > > There is a language called Modula-II which was also written by N. Wirth, that > does have these file-handling routines, and other such stuff. I have never > written in M-II, but people who have tell me that it has a syntax that is > very similar to Pascal. Modula-II still tends to be somewhat obscure, so I > have no idea if it has an industial following or not. > MII is much more than a new version of Pascal. Especially the modularity of this language (where the name comes from), helps you to just enjoy this language. BTW, it is even better for big projects (industrial programming). -- alderaan OP RKOpdp (RSTS/E) FB Mathematik/Informatik RKO Berlin Dieffenbachstrasze 60-61 1000 Berlin 61
alderaan@netmbx.UUCP (Thomas Cervera) (10/18/88)
In article <Oct.15.15.05.30.1988.7177@NET.BIO.NET>, lear@NET.BIO.NET (Eliot Lear) writes: > I do note that my own alma mater has been considering switching from > Pascal to LISP for their introductory CS courses. [...] Yes, and then, (here in Berlin), they changed to MODULA II. So, you should read books about MII before it's too late :-) -- alderaan OP RKOpdp (RSTS/E) FB Mathematik/Informatik RKO Berlin Dieffenbachstrasze 60-61 1000 Berlin 61
cme@cloud9.UUCP (Carl Ellison) (10/19/88)
In article <1525@netmbx.UUCP>, alderaan@netmbx.UUCP (Thomas Cervera) writes: > Yes, I think pascal will die out, because unlike in C, you cannot produce > such garbage source codes. Pascal is too restrictive. In my opinion, this is > a great feature of Pascal, but how to tell this a UNIX/C programmer ? I agree that this is a great feature -- and not just for novice programmers. When my code gets big enough (eg., 30000 lines or more), I need to be protected from myself. I'm careful -- but as the professor in my first system programming class pointed out: the first 20 minutes of coding on a new project are creation; everything after that is modification -- so design your code to be easy to modify! Unfortunately, it's not just UNIX/C programmers who are afraid of being accused of being sub-human if they use a language which does anything to try to keep them out of trouble. I've heard it from many sources -- including a system programmer who codes in PL/I (of all things). As far as I can tell, this is a psychological problem -- akin to the need to be macho -- and probably unsolvable. :-( --Carl Ellison ...!harvard!anvil!es!cme (normal mail address) ...!ulowell!cloud9!cme (usenet news reading)
rpick@ucqais.uc.edu (Roger Pick) (10/19/88)
In article <267@lafcol.UUCP>, galvinp@lafcol.UUCP (Galvin Paul ) writes: > > Hello, > > This my first message, so please be nice to me.... > > I am at Lafayette College as a sophomore and there is a certain > element that seems to think that Pascal is dying out. They say that > in 20 years, it will be long gone. > > Thanx --Paul J. Galvin The faculty of the Information Systems Group at the University of Cincinnati are switching from Pascal to Modula 2 in our first programming course for majors. In more advanced courses, we are phasing out programming using von Neumann languages altogether in favor of more modern tools: 4GLs like Focus or Nomad, application generators, report generators, and techniques for evaluation of software for purchase. As to the non-academic world, the employers who hire our students *never* used Pascal. They use COBOL, PL/1, or C, but they are writing fewer and fewer programs. -- Roger Alan Pick - QA & Information Systems Department, University of Cincinnati UUCP: {decuac,psuvax1!gatech!mit-eddie,philabs!phri,pyramid}!uccba!ucqais!rpick ARPA or BITNET: rpick%ucqais@uccba.uc.edu PHONE: (513) 556-7158 POST: QAIS - Lindner Hall, Univ. Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221-0130 USA
tran@peora.UUCP (10/20/88)
At the University of Central Florida, introduction courses (Programming I,II) are taught using Modula-2 for more than a year now.
drc@claris.com (Dennis Cohen) (10/21/88)
> > I am at Lafayette College as a sophomore and there is a certain > element that seems to think that Pascal is dying out. They say that > in 20 years, it will be long gone. Others have replied to the effect that this might be the case in the "real" world; however, I have seen enough evidence to the contrary to doubt their accuracy. The following are among "best-selling" software packages written in Pascal: 4th Dimension dBASE Mac FullWrite Professional MacDraw MacDraw II MacPaint MacProject MacinTax MacMoney FileMaker II NutShell Turbo Pascal HyperCard ReflexPlus There are a lot of others, but those are the ones that come quickly to mind. The thing that you will note about most/all of them is that they are written with "industrial-strength" (significantly extended) dialects of Pascal. This is particularly true of the Macintosh products. Sales reports indicate that in the Macintosh market, C and Pascal are essentially tied in popularity and sales. Dennis Cohen Claris Corp. ------------ Disclaimer: Any opinions expressed above are _MINE_!
sbrunnoc@hawk.ulowell.edu (Sean Brunnock) (10/22/88)
From article <6157@claris.com>, by drc@claris.com (Dennis Cohen): > The following are among "best-selling" software packages written > in Pascal: > Turbo Pascal I know that the libraries Borland writes for Turbo Pascal are written in Pascal, but Borland is proud to point out that the compiler itself is written purely in assembly (both Z80 and 8086). Sean Brunnock
schuetz@iraun1.ira.uka.de (Elmar Schuetz) (10/23/88)
[A very late answer ...] Hello, the University at Karlsruhe switched this year from Pascal to Modula2 for their introductory CS courses. 2 years ago, Pascal was the only language the students had to learn. Of course, they have the opportunity to use C, Ada, Prolog, PL1, Lisp and many others. Since two years they also have to learn Lisp during their 4th semester. Personally, I prefer Pascal and therefore I hope it will survive. But, when will Fortran and Cobol go away? I fear 65 to 70% are using it. Regards, Elmar csnet,internet,eunet: bitnet: internet: schuetz@ira.uka.de - schuetz@dkauni0i.bitnet - (and soon) schuetz@ira.uka.edu -- I hope that someone gets my message in the bottle. -- Sting
henkbo@philce.UUCP (Henk Boetzkes) (10/25/88)
It's not pascal whoes dying ! Blaise Pascal died in 1675. It's the programmer, he changed from programmer to manager. The new programmers still working and living in Pascal. No I'm using C or is C using me ? -- Don't shoot me, I am only the piano player. =#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=# # Henk.A.P.A. Boetzkes # E.D.P. N.P.B. Consumer Electronics # PO. BOX 218 ## 5600 MD Eindhoven, The Netherlands # Building SK4, Room 416 # # +31 40 735983 # !uunet! -> mcvax!philmds!philce!henkbo #=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=# PLEASE answer me just ONE QUESTION, What the heck am I doing here !
art@buengc.BU.EDU (A. R. Thompson) (10/26/88)
In article <460@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> kolb@handel.colostate.edu..UUCP (Denny Kolb) writes: >In article <267@lafcol.UUCP> galvinp@lafcol.UUCP (Galvin Paul ) writes: >> >>.....there is a certain >>element that seems to think that Pascal is dying out. They say that >>in 20 years, it will be long gone. >> >>Is there any basis for this? > > I don't really see anything that would justify that kind of pessimism. > > I have been hearing for at least 10 years now, that FORTRAN is destined for >the 'scrap heap of computerdom', but at last report, it is comming along quite >well. > > Granted, as a 'real world', production language, Pascal leaves much to be >desired. However, Pascal was never intended for an environment such as that. >Pascal is first and formost, a teaching language, and as such it has no equal. >(Would you REALLY want to learn 'C' as a First Language???) The newly proposed Pascal standard fixes up a lot of the problems associated with "production" programming. The major extensions are: Separate compilation (modules), functions that return structured results, direct access files, schemata (replacing the troublesome cantankerous [conformant] array extension of the British Standard and dynamic strings. There are also a number of minor extensions, e.g. "otherwise" clause in case statement, built in imaginary type and more. With the new extended Pascal it should be far more suitable for industrial strength work. Pascal is alive and quite healthy in Europe. The major problem with Pascal, at least as I see it, is the lack of publicity of the standards work. I believe that if more public attention were drawn to the new version we would be seeing a resurgence of interest in what is really a very fine language, far superior to C in my humble opinion (at least once the "teaching only" drawbacks are eliminated). Can somebody on the Pascal committee please bring us up to date on the status of things (Yoo hoo, Bob Dietrich are you listening?) > > I am currently teaching the Intro Pascal course here at CSU, and as a >first language Pascal does remarkably well. Pascal enables the student to learn >the various laguage constructs, such as Looping, Selection, Arrays, Data >Abstraction, etc. Without having to learn all of the extraneous garbage that >generally go along with them in a more conventional language. Here in the College of Engineering at BU we do the same thing and are quite happy with the results. > >>I hardly see anyone who is in the >>business of writing programs or such and I would not be able to >>determine the truth of this. > > I am a little confused as to what you mean by 'in the business', but I assume >that you are refering to the more 'real world' sorts of programming here. > > If this is true, then in this area, I think Pascal is already gone. I doubt >that many, if any, companies involved in large programming projects are actively >using Pascal in their Day-to-Day programming activities. There are several >reasons for this, but primarily, Pascal lacks most of the file handling >capabilities that are essential for any kind of realistic software package. It's quite widely used in Europe. But the limitations of "pure" Pascal are well known and are inhibitory in the context of "real" programming, not just file handling e.g. no real time support, no separate compilation, static arrays etc. With luck the new standard will have eliminated these objections and will lead to a wider use of the language. > > There is a language called Modula-II which was also written by N. Wirth, that >does have these file-handling routines, and other such stuff. I have never >written in M-II, but people who have tell me that it has a syntax that is >very similar to Pascal. Modula-II still tends to be somewhat obscure, so I >have no idea if it has an industial following or not. Modula-II has some drawbacks. I haven't looked at it for a while, so what follows is a bit shaky. MII defines a "word", a sixteen bit pattern of bits. This is unfortunate since in a very real sense it welds a bias toward sixteen bit architectures into the language. It allows structural compatibility of types, which we all "know" is immoral. The biggest sin MII commits is, however, its definition of "modules" inside of procedures. This is unfortunate since it makes modules subject to the dynamic comings and goings of procedures. That is, given the definition of the lifetime of a procedure, a module exists while its defining procedure is active and ceases to exist when that procedure is exited. If you view a module (as most do) as a fixed component, analogous to a transistor, this makes no sense. The transistor is always there even if it's not being used, it doesn't come into existence when needed and then disappear. So modules should always exist, even if they are only used inside of one or more procedures. A better way is to define modules that define procedures as their components instead of the other way around. This allows the language to define "abstract data types", a collection of values (types) and the operations valid over those values. An example would be a module that defines a type "stack", (a linear data structure with insertions and deletions allowed only at one end), the operations "push" and "pop" and the boolean variables "full" and "empty" plus whatever other housekeeping is deemed necessary. The interested readers are referred to DeRemer and Kron's classic paper "Programming in the Large Versus Programming in the Small" 1976 IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (exact vol, pages etc not at hand, sorry) for a thorough discussion of the differences between static and dynamic objects in programs and the need for different languages to express these very different concepts. It turns out that it is possible to define a static structure definition language that (when coupled with Pascal as the language for programming in the small) allows Pascal to be used as an object oriented language. Neat huh?
ags@s.cc.purdue.edu (Dave Seaman) (10/26/88)
In article <1284@buengc.BU.EDU> art@buengc.bu.edu (A. R. Thompson) writes: >Modula-II has some drawbacks. I haven't looked at it for a while, so what >follows is a bit shaky. MII defines a "word", a sixteen bit pattern of >bits. >This is unfortunate since in a very real sense it welds a bias >toward sixteen bit architectures into the language. I have crossposted to comp.lang.modula2 and redirected the followups to that group. First of all, MII does not define a "word". I believe the system module may define a word, but its size is implementation-defined. There is nothing in the MII language itself that is "biased" toward 16-bit architectures. >The biggest sin >MII commits is, however, its definition of "modules" inside of procedures. >This is unfortunate since it makes modules subject to the dynamic comings >and goings of procedures. [long tirade deleted] Only if you choose to do it that way. You can have modules inside procedures, or you can have procedures inside modules. You can even have both at once, if it pleases you. Actually, I believe the concept of "local modules" is being removed or already has been removed, though it was present in the last implementation of MII that I actually used. It seems that few people were making use of local modules. If all modules are required to be separate compilation units, then it is no longer possible to have modules inside procedures. Does that make you happy? -- Dave Seaman ags@j.cc.purdue.edu
joel@wsl.dec.com (10/26/88)
A. R. Thompson has a few misconceptions about Modula-2. The language certainly has some problems, but none that he describes. First, the type WORD is imported from a machine-dependent module SYSTEM. Using WORD is therefore not portable to all other implementations, but is the right thing for the machine at hand. In particular, on a VAX the type WORD is 32 bits long. I have been convinced that structural compatibility of types is not bad in all cases, particularly if you are dealing with data structures residing on remote machines. In this case it is hard to maintain name compatibility. But in any case, Modula-2 uses name compatibility. Modula-2 allows the declaration of modules inside of procedures, but hardly anyone uses them this way. Most modules are declared as compilation units, and data declared in these modules exists for the life of the module. In most systems, this is synonymous with the life of the program, but in systems that support dynamic loading the module data may live longer. Modula-2 modules allow the definition of ``abstract data types'' in the original sense of the word. It does not support subtyping or object-oriented programming directly, though many have kludged around this by embedding procedure fields inside of records. You do give up type-safety if you want to subclass using this technique. Modula-2 is a much nicer language than Pascal, with none of the problems attributed to it by A. R. Thompsen. I can't speak for the extended Pascal proposal. - Joel McCormack
gwills@maths.tcd.ie (Graham Wills) (10/27/88)
In article <9631@swan.ulowell.edu> sbrunnoc@hawk.ulowell.edu (Sean Brunnock) writes: > > I don't believe that Pascal is used much by serious programmers >developers anymore, thank/blame C for that. You are wrong. Pascal is still very much used by serious programmers. I am a Postgrad at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, and a lot of my research is associated with programming. I use the Macintosh family of computers, especially the Mac II ( and if you are talking about *serious* PCs, then the Mac II beats most others hollow - especially for easy, speedy graphics, which is essential for my area of research; Spatial population motion analysis ) I have written a time series package which works with graphic representations, which uses binary and text data files, can import/export to Excel, multi- windows, etc., etc. . I have also written simulations, and have acces to a wide variety of packages written in Pascal. I have written a Kermit for an obscure Mini in a mixture of C and Fortran, demo Forth applications, Object-oriented Pascal programs, and as a young and free hacker, games in Basic, 6502 and Z80 machine code. Whoops - reading back that reads like a job application letter. It's meant to demonstrate that I do know what I'm talking about, which is : 1) Pascal is a nice language. It is (and I don't think anyone disagrees with this) an ideal language to learn programming with. 2) It is not easy or quick to work with standard Pascal filing methods - If you need to do serious work, get libraries. I use the standard Mac routines, so I can load in records, windows, arrays as binary files with two or three lines of code, and very quickly. This (and rigorous typing - which is annoying) is its worst defect for the serious programmer. 3) C is a much more flexible language (hopefully this is indisputable). This is both good and bad. It is good in that more compact, subtle code is possible, and bad in that you can write overly subtle, unreadable code. For a well-disciplined programmer this is no problem. For most of us, it is. In summary, I use Pascal happily all the time, hate doing filing using it, but prefer it because it is very readable, simple and keeps me on the rails as regards readability, modifiability and structuredness. With C I tend to hack. These are my personal opinions, and I just threw it in to show that serious Pascal is alive and well. All replies welcome. I wear asbestos suits while reading News ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The secret is to bang the rocks together" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
jamesv@hplsla.HP.COM (James Vasil) (10/27/88)
> I am at Lafayette College as a sophomore and there is a certain > element that seems to think that Pascal is dying out. They say that > in 20 years, it will be long gone. > > Is there any basis for this? I hardly see anyone who is in the > business of writing programs or such and I would not be able to > determine the truth of this. > > Thanx --Paul J. Galvin > ---------- 20 years is an awfully long time in this business. My guess would be that yes, that far in the future Pascal will no longer be used too much. The same statement may be made for each of the other programming languages currently in vogue (if this doesn't come about then CS will have not progressed much beyond today's state of the art, and I don't think that will be the case). If you come out of school knowing Pascal, C, Ada (at least some), and Lisp (at least some) you should be employable and able to learn new languages as they come into existance. Regards, James /* As always, these opinions are mine, not my employer's. */
bobdi@omepd (Bob Dietrich) (10/28/88)
[This is going to be a lot shorter than I'd like (quit cheering!), but I'm going out of town in about 9 hours.] I think the conclusions you've reached based on your limited sample are wrong. I work for a company that sells Pascal, have regular contact with many other Pascal vendors, and I think it's far from dying out in the near term. Certainly one factor that may have tinged the response to your question is the forum you asked it in: usenet. The majority of machines on usenet are running some flavor of Unix. With C being the implementation language of Unix, and with Unix needing to be worked on constantly, there's certainly going to be a much higher percentage of C devotees on usenet. Also, often (note I'm not saying always!) these Unix machines are not in a department doing product development work. Even though Unix is a popular bandwagon, it does not come close to controlling a majority of the computers in the field. Now that I've stirred up the hornets's nest (he he), on to other points. I think if you simply take a look at the languages offered by vendors that are in the business of selling languages or computer systems, you'll see that Pascal is almost always listed. Unless it's trying to be a tax write-off, a company simply cannot afford to support a language unless there's demand for it. And frankly, educational institutions don't have enough clout with industry to force a manufacturer to support a language solely for teaching. Successful languages, like many things, go through a life-cycle. At first, there's just a small band of missionaries spreading the word. Then, if the word has any merit, it catches on. Articles and books are written, further spreading the enthusiasm. The word becomes widely discussed, and some people even go so far as to actually use the language. The language becomes more commonplace, a better vehicle of communication, and it enters its workhorse phase. Since the word is now common knowledge, there's no sense writing about it so much anymore, so editors and publishers jump on the next bandwagon that rolls along. The workhorse continues to plod along, creating excitement only if it's not there to do its job. It gets replaced only when there's a workhorse that's so much better that it's economical to forget how much you invested in the older workhorse. Pascal is in the workhorse stage, and there hasn't been a suitable replacement come by yet. [Yeah, I know I switched metaphors in midstream; so what.] In the relatively short time people have been seriously using programming languages, only a handful have made it to workhorse status: COBOL, FORTRAN, ALGOL, BASIC, Pascal, LISP, and C. Others faded before they got there, and ALGOL and BASIC have pretty much reached the end of their useful life. The others that have survived have gradually changed over the years, and Pascal is about to undergo such a change with Extended Pascal. Extended Pascal should offer enough of what users want (modularity, strings, random I/O, flexible arrays, standardization, etc.) that it should renew interest in the language. All this without screwing up sets like Modula-2 did. If it doesn't renew interest, it will be around until something better comes along. Which will be a while. Enough. I have to go pack. usenet: uunet!littlei!ihf1!bobd Bob Dietrich or tektronix!ogcvax!omepd!ihf1!bobd Intel Corp., Hillsboro, Oregon or tektronix!psu-cs!omepd!ihf1!bobd (503) 696-2092
jeff@aiva.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) (10/28/88)
In article <1284@buengc.BU.EDU> art@buengc.bu.edu (A. R. Thompson) writes: >express these very different concepts. It turns out that it is possible >to define a static structure definition language that (when coupled with >Pascal as the language for programming in the small) allows Pascal to be >used as an object oriented language. Neat huh? Neat indeed. Can you tell me more about this? ML modules do something similar, but I don't think the object part (a "functor" returns a module that can be considered an object) works too well as objects, though it's not so bad for combining modules (well, ML calls them "structures" -- and a "module" is a functor or a structure).
sbigham@dukeac.UUCP (Scott Bigham) (10/30/88)
In article <3884@omepd> bobdi@omepd (Bob Dietrich) writes: >...and Pascal >is about to undergo such a change with Extended Pascal. Extended Pascal >should offer enough of what users want (modularity, strings, random I/O, >flexible arrays, standardization, etc.) that it should renew interest in >the language... So who's doing this? Is this one of those ANSI committees, like the X3Jn committees we hear so much about in comp.lang.{c,fortran}? What is n for Pascal? Is there anyone out there on that committee, or anyone who knows what's happening? FILL US IN! sbigham -- Scott Bigham "The opinions expressed above represent Internet sbigham@dukeac.ac.duke.edu me and everyone that agrees with me. USENET sbigham@dukeac.UUCP If that includes Duke University, ...!mcnc!ecsgate!dukeac!sbigham I'll be amazed."
jc58+@andrew.cmu.edu (Johnny J. Chin) (11/02/88)
Personally, I don't think that PASCAL will die so soon. It'll probably last
for more than another two decades.
From my experience, many more intermediate and high schools are teaching
PASCAL because its a modularized lanaguage unlike BASIC with all of its GOTOs.
Most of the schools that I've seen teaching PASCAL chose it over MODULA because
its not as teadious and they both seem to have the same basic modular
structure. Many schools still teach a bit of BASIC before PASCAL though.
As for the business world ... (since I'm primarily in the MSDOS areana, what I
have to say only applies to this arena). In the past two years, with the
rapidly standardized TURBO PASCAL ... many programs written in PASCAL has
been cropping up on the market. Programs ranging from $10 to $800.
In conclusion. From the way things look, PASCAL is here to stay for quite
some time. Besides, they said that FORTRAN and COBOL is old and obsolete and
should be placed on a back shelf ... Well, obviously, they've now become the
"grand-daddies" of programming languages, but they haven't died yet; so why
should PASCAL die so quickly?
-- J. Chin (a.k.a. Computer Dr.)
4730 Centre Avenue, Apt. #412 ARPAnet: Johnny.J.Chin@andrew.cmu.edu
Pittsburgh, Pennslyvania 15213 BITnet: jc58@andrew.BITNET
(412) 268-8936 UUCP: ...!harvard!andrew.cmu.edu!jc58
[Disclaimer: As always, everything above is my own opinion and not of
Carnegie Mellon University or of my employer.]numork@ndsuvax.UUCP (James Mork) (11/03/88)
Headline: Pascal died today... Lisp, Ada, Smalltalk, Prolog, and C
attended the funeral. To the embarassment of the DOD, it was noted,
that ADA seemed to be coughing quite a bit... and it's so young too...
(sorry for the humor in this tech group)
--
UUCP Bitnet Internet
uunet!ndsuvax!numork numork@ndsuvax numork@plains.nodak.edumarki@hpiacla.HP.COM (Mark Ikemoto) (11/05/88)
Speaking of languages dying out reminds me of a wonderful poster I
saw a few years ago. It showed a timeline of the history (and possible
future) of computing (abbreviated)...
1893 - Ada Lovelace discovers Charles Babbage
1895 - Ada Lovelace discovers the calculator is more fun than Charles Babbage
1950 - COBOL is born; world celebrates
1953 - FORTRAN is born; revenge on COBOL
1957 - Death of COBOL predicted
1963 - BASIC is born; a language for people who do counting on their fingers
1965 - Death of FORTRAN predicted
1966 - C is on the horizon
1973 - Death of COBOL predicted
1974 - Pascal is born; competition with C
1977 - C is born; revenge on FORTRAN
1979 - Ada is born; revenge on Charles Babbage
1982 - Death of FORTRAN predicted
1985 - Death of Charles Babbage predicted
1986 - Death of COBOL predicted
1991 - Charles Babbage legally pronounced dead
1993 - Death of BASIC predicted
1997 - merging of C and C++ into new language D
2001 - dark monolith discovered on Jupiter moon; determined to be
an old COBOL card deck for an accounts receivable program
2002 - COBOL reborn as COBOL++
2010 - Death of Pascal predicted
...bobdi@omepd (Bob Dietrich) (11/11/88)
In article <1071@dukeac.UUCP> sbigham@dukeac.UUCP (Scott Bigham) writes: >In article <3884@omepd> bobdi@omepd (Bob Dietrich) writes: >>...and Pascal >>is about to undergo such a change with Extended Pascal. Extended Pascal >>should offer enough of what users want (modularity, strings, random I/O, >>flexible arrays, standardization, etc.) that it should renew interest in >>the language... > >So who's doing this? Is this one of those ANSI committees, like the X3Jn >committees we hear so much about in comp.lang.{c,fortran}? What is n for >Pascal? Is there anyone out there on that committee, or anyone who knows >what's happening? FILL US IN! >Scott Bigham "The opinions expressed above represent Maybe you're new to the newsgroup, or maybe my postings haven't been making it off my machine. In any event, I've tried to update the readers from time to time as to what's going on. Yes, Extended Pascal is being worked on by a (uniquely) joint committee of ANSI and IEEE. It is officially known as the Joint ANSI X3J9/IEEE Pascal Committee, or JPC. There has been a lot of cooperation with the British and ISO committees as well. Although the American public comment period is officially over, below is an extract of the announcement I posted. You can still obtain the document and send in comments, although JPC will not be obliged to act upon them. I hope to post a summary of where things stand in the standardization process shortly. Bob Dietrich Intel Corporation, Hillsboro, Oregon (503) 696-2092 usenet: uunet!littlei!ihf1!bobd or tektronix!tessi!agora!ihf1!bobd or tektronix!ogcvax!omepd!ihf1!bobd or tektronix!psu-cs!omepd!ihf1!bobd ===================================================== [Extracted from a previous posting] Extended Pascal is an upward-compatible extension to the presently-existing standards for Pascal. It has been developed in an international effort between the American Joint X3/IEEE committee, the British Pascal committee, International Working Group on Pascal, and the ISO/JTC1 Subcommittee 22. As such, Extended Pascal is being put forth as an American, British, and International standard. This standard is intended to coexist with the existing Pascal standards until such time as these standards are no longer needed. The major features in Extended Pascal that distinguish it from the classic language defined by Jensen and Wirth are: modules with separable definition and interface parts (including initialization and finalization of modules), a generalized type definition mechanism (schemata) which permits the static and dynamic selection from a "set of types", a secure method for initializing variables of a given type (even if they are outside of the module where the type is defined), and the ability to define private variables which have restrictions placed on their access. In addition, Extended Pascal contains many pragmatic features which make it a more practical and usable language than "classic" Pascal. Some of these are: string types of both dynamic and fixed length, short-circuit logic operators, exponentiation, direct-access files, external file binding, complex numbers, constant expressions, record and array value constructors, non-decimal integer constants, time and date functions, and numerous other features. Extended Pascal also includes many simple conveniences which have become standard practice, such as an underscore character in identifiers, relaxed order of declarations, and an otherwise clause in the case statement and variant records. This draft standard is available for public review and comment for a two-month period ending October 11, 1988. Copies may be obtained from GLOBAL ENGINEERING DOCUMENTS, INC. Phone: 800-854-7179 (USA) +1-714-261-1455 (International) FAX: 714-261-7892 Address: Global Engineering Documents, Inc. 2805 McGaw Ave. Irving, CA 92714 USA Note: Because the public comment period only lasts two months, it is advisable that all requests be made by telephone so that you will have more time to submit comments within the designated period for public comment. Single Copy Price: $ 35.00 International Copy Price: $45.50 [U.S. dollars. I believe they take credit cards or will bill you. Be sure to ask for "X3.160-198x", because last time they didn't know what you were talking about if you said "Extended Pascal". Maybe they've improved.]
WAPJAS%CARLETON.BITNET@CORNELLC.CIT.CORNELL.EDU (WAPJAS) (11/12/88)
Message-ID: <8811112138.aa00342@VIM.BRL.MIL>
I think it is more accurate to think of Pascal as be-calmed than
dying.
I believe the main obstacle facing Pascal is the lack of portability
between different implementations of Pascal. This is rather ironic as
the ISO and ANSI standards for Pascal were approved several years ago,
whereas C, a language that is considered to be very portable, has
not been standardized yet (though the draft ANSI C standard could be
approved fairly soon).
The main strengths of Pascal are it's strong typing and simplicity.
It's main weakness is that it lacks the functionality needed to write
"real" programs. Most Pascal implementors chose to increase functionality
by adding extensions to Standard Pascal to their compilers. Unfortunately
there is no consistency in what extensions are provided or how the
extensions are implemented between different Pascal compilers. Extensions
to Standard Pascal are only helpful to users who do not care about
portability.
The situation is further clouded by the existance of Turbo Pascal.
There are probably more copies of Turbo Pascal in use than any other
Pascal compiler. Unfortunately, Turbo Pascal does not conform to the
Pascal standard (it's close but no cigar!). This makes Turbo Pascal
a defacto Pascal standard.
Is there any way to get Pascal moving again? Yes there is. What we
have to do is
1) Get the draft ISO/ANSI Extended Pascal standard approved. Extended
Pascal provides much more functionality than the current Pascal
standard. New features include modules, varying length strings,
relaxed order of declarations, etc.
2) Users have to pressure the people who write and sell Pascal
compilers to make their products conform to the Extended Pascal
standard.
Is it worth it? If you believe as I do that Pascal's strong typing
and good error detection help you write correct programs quickly than the
answer should be yes.
Regards.. John Stewart <WAPJAS@CARLETON.BITNET>burton@ssc-vax.UUCP (Mike Burton) (11/14/88)
I am very new to this group, so please don't flame me too badly if this has been asked before. I see this talk about extended PASCAL, but it appears as though someone took PASCAL, added maybe 60% of the features that can already be found in Ada, and proposed extended PASCAL. If Ada has most of these features already, why bother reviving PASCAL?
rang@cpsin3.cps.msu.edu (Anton Rang) (11/15/88)
In article <2365@ssc-vax.uucp>, Mike Burton (burton@ssc-vax.uucp) writes: > I see this talk about extended PASCAL, >but it appears as though someone took PASCAL, added maybe 60% of the >features that can already be found in Ada, and proposed extended >PASCAL. If Ada has most of these features already, why bother >reviving PASCAL? For one thing, it's nearly impossible to put Ada on a micro. Things like tasking, etc., just are *very* hard to do (I know of one implementation on a 386 machine w/16MB of memory, but that's it). Extended Pascal is an attempt to add useful features to Pascal without making it too inefficient on small machines (or even big machines, for that matter). At least, that's my understanding. (Personally, the only useful Ada systems I've worked with cost $50,000+ and need a VAX to run--I stick with Pascal for the rest!). Just my thoughts.... Anton +---------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+ | Anton Rang (grad student) | "UNIX: Just Say No!" | "Do worry...be SAD!" | | Michigan State University | rang@cpswh.cps.msu.edu | | +---------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
pattis@june.cs.washington.edu (Richard Pattis) (11/16/88)
> For one thing, it's nearly impossible to put Ada on a micro. Things > like tasking, etc., just are *very* hard to do (I know of one > implementation on a 386 machine w/16MB of memory, but that's it). > Extended Pascal is an attempt to add useful features to Pascal > without making it too inefficient on small machines (or even big > machines, for that matter). At least, that's my understanding. > (Personally, the only useful Ada systems I've worked with cost > $50,000+ and need a VAX to run--I stick with Pascal for the rest!). > Just my thoughts.... > > Anton > Both Meridian and R&R sell validated Ada compilers that run on 640K PCs. My performance on an 8 megaherz AT is approximately that of moderately loaded VAX 8650 running DEC-Ada. The costs are still high, $500-$1,000 but I believe this will come down (I can remember back when one Modula-2 compiler existed (Logitech) and it cost about this much too; now a wide range of M-2 compilers exist for 1/10th the price). You can get a site-license for a much cheaper cost/machine. If Ada compilers follow the same curve as M-2 compilers I expect much cheaper ones in a few years. They will probably never compile as fast as Pascal, but the hope is that with Ada you will not need to compile as much code as many times. We have begun teaching Ada in our introductory courses here a U. Washington and things seem to be proceeding OK, if a bit slowly. But the more complex the language, the slower it is learned (with a big payoff during the second quarter). After all, it takes more time to learn Pascal than BASIC, but we all think that it is worth it, when we must use the language to develop large programs.
zifrony@TAURUS.BITNET (11/18/88)
In article <93@maths.tcd.ie> gwills@maths.tcd.ie (Graham Wills) writes: >In article <9631@swan.ulowell.edu> sbrunnoc@hawk.ulowell.edu (Sean Brunnock) wr >> >> I don't believe that Pascal is used much by serious programmers >>developers anymore, thank/blame C for that. > >You are wrong. Pascal is still very much used by serious programmers. ... > >1) Pascal is a nice language. It is (and I don't think anyone disagrees with > this) an ideal language to learn programming with. >2) It is not easy or quick to work with standard Pascal filing methods - > If you need to do serious work, get libraries. I use the standard Mac > routines, so I can load in records, windows, arrays as binary files with > two or three lines of code, and very quickly. This (and rigorous typing - > which is annoying) is its worst defect for the serious programmer. >3) C is a much more flexible language (hopefully this is indisputable). > This is both good and bad. It is good in that more compact, subtle code > is possible, and bad in that you can write overly subtle, unreadable code. > For a well-disciplined programmer this is no problem. For most of us, it is. > >In summary, I use Pascal happily all the time, hate doing filing using it, but >prefer it because it is very readable, simple and keeps me on the rails as >regards readability, modifiability and structuredness. With C I tend to hack. > I agree with Graham. If you need to produce a large system, where many programmers are working together, Pascal is a much better language to accomplish such things as clarity, readability, maintainability, etc' then many other languages. In addition, the strength of Pascal in producing unlimited number of data structures, its use of pointers - restrictive enough so to prevent you from making foolish mistakes, and the sets put it as my primary choice for implementation language. As most Pascal compilers extend the language by adding an "otherwise" clause in a case statement, and some add string manipulation, it is fair for most applications (file I/O can be handled, most of the times, by system call routines). I have worked in a private company, where a certain product was developed in Pascal. I have no doubts that doing it in C would have lengthen the development time. Doron Zifrony - zifrony@taurus.bitnet or Msc student zifrony@MATH.Tau.Ac.IL Department of Computer Science Tel Aviv University Israel
warren@psu-cs.UUCP (Warren Harrison) (11/18/88)
> ... other stuff deleted ... > For one thing, it's nearly impossible to put Ada on a micro. Things > like tasking, etc., just are *very* hard to do (I know of one > implementation on a 386 machine w/16MB of memory, but that's it). > Extended Pascal is an attempt to add useful features to Pascal > without making it too inefficient on small machines (or even big > machines, for that matter). At least, that's my understanding. > (Personally, the only useful Ada systems I've worked with cost > $50,000+ and need a VAX to run--I stick with Pascal for the rest!). > Just my thoughts.... > > Anton I know this is comp.lang.pascal, but I just had to respond to this. Based on literature I received from the AJPO, Janus Ada has become validated which means it does all those things ... on a modest 286 to boot. I've not used the validated compiler yet, but their earlier ones seem quite reasonable (for $100), and run fine on my At w/640K. True, they're kind of slow, and only create .COM files, but wadda ya want fer a hundred bucks? (actually, the validated on is closer to $500 as I recall, and I think it will create .EXE files). -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Warren Harrison CSNET: warren@pdx.edu Department of Computer Science UUCP: {ucbvax,decvax}!tektronix!psu-cs!warren Portland State University Internet: warren%pdx.edu@relay.cs.net Portland, OR 97207-0751
carlson@murpho.mitre.org (Bruce Carlson) (11/22/88)
In article <1082@cps3xx.UUCP> rang@cpswh.cps.msu.edu (Anton Rang) writes: > >For one thing, it's nearly impossible to put Ada on a micro. Things >like tasking, etc., just are *very* hard to do (I know of one >implementation on a 386 machine w/16MB of memory, but that's it). > Anton I don't know exactly what you mean by saying "it's nearly impossible to put Ada on a micro", but in any case I think your statement is misleading. I have run the Meridian Ada Compiler (validated) on a PC AT and a PC XT, with no problems in installation or compilation of code. The compiler I had included a DOS function library and some other Meridian additions to the basic compiler. If you are used to Turbo Pascal most Ada compilers will seem archaic. The basic Meridian compiler was $400 (with the govt/educational discount) and did not include an editor or debugger. The DOS function library was $50 additional. The compiler is much slower than Turbo Pascal and generates much larger code, but it is not harder to install or use than any other command line type compiler. One important caveat in my experiences is that I was implementing some relatively simple programs, the biggest being a symbol table generator for Ada source code. For programs of this size, with only one programmer working on the code, Ada is probably overkill. If you are building very large programs in Ada you may want to have a high end micro with enough power to give you reasonably short compile times. Bruce Carlson Disclaimer: I don't have any connection with Meridian Software, they just happened to have the cheapest validated compiler I could find at the time. My opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of my employer.
ecl6895@ultb.UUCP (E.C. Loyd ) (11/23/88)
Well, for starters, I would like to say that Pascal, in it's basic forms is not what I would choose to program in. However, I do most of my programming in VAX Extended Pascal, and find that with the exception of declaring external procedures/functions (and all that tedious header information) that I have no problems with working in Pascal. Now, those of you that say, "But what about the powerful C language?"... well, I program in that when I want something to work, and don't care who sees it. In other words, if I'm hacking together my latest random number generator, I do it in C. If I'm doing a heavy duty data-base manager with some file structures (internal or external files, it doesn't matter) thrown in, then I do it in Pascal. It depends on the application.