sawant@nunki.usc.edu (Abhay Sawant) (02/01/89)
In the domain of Pascal implementations, Turbo Pascal is really head and shoulders ahead of the competition (evidenced by the sheer lack of competition ?). How and why does Microsoft keep churning out newer versions (each of them ponderous and painful) of Microsoft Pascal ? Is there any large group of people who would actually prefer MSP ? -ajay
schanck@dinghy.cis.ohio-state.edu (Christopher Schanck) (02/01/89)
In article <2528@nunki.usc.edu> sawant@nunki.usc.edu () writes: > >In the domain of Pascal implementations, Turbo Pascal is really head >and shoulders ahead of the competition (evidenced by the sheer lack of >competition ?). How and why does Microsoft keep churning out newer >versions (each of them ponderous and painful) of Microsoft Pascal ? > >Is there any large group of people who would actually prefer MSP ? > > -ajay I don't prefer MSP, that is for sure, but up until TP4.0, MSP was your only option for truly large programs, since TP was limited to the .COM format. 'Course, who would want to code large programs in MSP, anyway? Chris -=- "I do not THINK in regular expressions, and I am not NP-complete!" --- Christopher Schanck, occasional human being. schanck@.cis.ohio-state.edu
rohn@pyr1.acs.udel.EDU (David C Rohn) (02/01/89)
In article <33315@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Christopher Schanck <schanck@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes: > >I don't prefer MSP, that is for sure, but up until TP4.0, MSP was your >only option for truly large programs, since TP was limited to the >.COM format. 'Course, who would want to code large programs in MSP, anyway? > According to Infoworld, Microsoft is readying a "Quick Pascal" for release, which is source-code compatible with Turbo (Not sure which version). If they change MS Pascal the same way, there may be a showdown at the Pascal corral.
abcscnge@csuna.UUCP (Scott "The Pseudo-Hacker" Neugroschl) (02/02/89)
In article <2528@nunki.usc.edu> sawant@nunki.usc.edu () writes: >Is there any large group of people who would actually prefer MSP ? People who write OS/2 programs in Pascal, but they'd be double masochists... -- Scott "The Pseudo-Hacker" Neugroschl UUCP: ...!sm.unisys.com!csun!csuna!abcscnge -- "Beat me, whip me, make me code in Ada" -- Disclaimers? We don't need no stinking disclaimers!!!
neff@hpvcfs1.HP.COM (Dave Neff) (02/03/89)
Microsoft has been periodically updating their Pascal, but at a painfully slow rate. Early last summer they finally had a version that supported OS/2 and more importantly FINALLY used all of memory for symbol tables. Previously, the symbol table had to fit in the 64K data segment, although it did have 32 bit pointers to symbols outside of the data segment. This meant the compiler didn't really use all of memory, and in my experience adding memory greater than about 300K did not matter. I never bought the upgrade since I long stopped using their compiler. Obviously their Pascal support and interest is minor at this time. C and Quick basic is "where the action is". Perhaps the only advantage of Microsoft Pascal (now that Turbo finally supports big programs) is the fact that a compatable Xenix version exists. In fact, if I recall correctly, the object code generated by the PC Pascal compiler is compatable with object code on the Xenix version. So if you really like Pascal and are developing code for DOS and Xenix their compiler does make sense. I gave up on Microsoft Pascal about 2 years ago. I liked allot of things about it but its non-portable extentions were too useful to ignore, but resulted in non-portable code. Its C for me from now on until something better (probably C++) comes along. Dave Neff att!hpfcla!hpvcla!neff
Eric.Thav@f7.n369.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Eric Thav) (02/12/89)
Dave,
Well, then, you should be interested in hearing that (according
to InfoWorld) Microsoft is expected to release Quick Pascal any day
now. That should raise at least half an eyebrow from someone
somewhere.
/* Eric Thav */
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