[comp.lang.modula2] comp.lang.modula2

agnew@trwrc.UUCP (Robert A. Agnew) (03/09/89)

    I can't believe it, he's (N. Wirth) released another edition (the 4th)
of the spec for Modula II.  I didn't think that he was still interested
after abondoning the language for Oberon, but I guess the royalities
are worth it. The major change was the same one that caused me so much
pain in porting the single pass NS32000 compiler; namely, CARDINAL is
now just a subrange [0..32767] of INTEGER! I can't believe it. Why 
throw away unsigned 16 bit arithmetic not to mention 32-bit unsigned 
arithmetic (LONGCARD). How will it be possible to port code from
16 bit machines (and there is a lot of it ) to machines using the 
4th Edition spec? I had to recast almost every assignment to the new
style of integer with CARDINAL( ) in order to get the compiler source to
compile on a 3rd edition compiler. This was about 1000 such occurances.

	I suggest that every MODULA II compiler writer out there totally
disregard the flagrant insanities in the 4th edition!

Bob Agnew -- My opinion and mine alone!

alan@pdn.nm.paradyne.com (Alan Lovejoy) (03/11/89)

In article <331@trwrc.UUCP> agnew@trwrc.UUCP (Robert A. Agnew) writes:
>	I suggest that every MODULA II compiler writer out there totally
>disregard the flagrant insanities in the 4th edition!

It should be interesting to compare the language defined by the
international standardization effort with that defined by PIM2v4.

Could it be that a committee will produce a product superior to that
of the great language designer himself?


-- 
Alan Lovejoy; alan@pdn; 813-530-2211; ATT-Paradyne: 8550 Ulmerton, Largo, FL.
Disclaimer: I do not speak for ATT-Paradyne.  They do not speak for me. 
___________ This Month's Slogan: Reach out and BUY someone (tm). ___________
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samlb@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Sam Bassett RCD) (03/11/89)

	Yes, it is _very_ likely that the M2 Standardization Committee (if
they can ever pull their thumbs out and decide) will do a better job than
the inventor -- after all, der verehrter Herr Doktor Professor has often
stated that he is primarily interested in the research and language
design aspects of the language, and that mere matters of utility and
implementation are not of interest . . .

:-)


Sam'l Bassett, Member of the Technical Staff, Sterling Software
@ NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field CA 94345 
Work: (415) 694-4792;  Home: (415) 454-7282
samlb%well@lll-crg.ARPA   Compuserve:  71735,1776

bear@obdient.CHI.IL.US (Harry Skelton) (03/14/89)

Where can I get manuals for this language?  I have a PD PC version that 
I would like to bring up to speed.

Harry Skelton
bear@obdient