peter@aucs.UUCP (Peter Steele) (05/23/88)
I had been using Turbo Pascal and had some minor complaints
with it:
- not multifinder compatible
- cursor keys do not work
I was told to switch to Lightspeed Pascal because it is so much
better. So, I went and bought a copy through a mail order house,
Macconnection I believe. The first thing I tried to do was convert
one of my TurboPascal programs. These are the complaints I have
about Lightspeed Pascal:
- not multifinder compatible
- cursor keys do not work
- does not recognize Lisa Pascal's EXIT statement
- does not allow dereferencing to be used in
conjunction with type casting
- does not allow @ to be used with packed arrays
- comments cannot cross line boundaries
- does not recognize the newer toolbox routines and constants
(such as those dealing with the zoom box)
- screen update is slow and unintelligent in the editor, often
redrawing things that do not have to be redrawn
- compilation is very slow compared to Turbo Pascal (and other
compilers I've used).
- technique used for font selection of program source display
is very poor--I had to cycle through half a dozen fonts to get
to Monaco.
- in general, not as compatible with Lisa Pascal as it should be
I suspect I'd find more to complain about if I continued to use it,
but I've decided to switch back to TurboPascal. If there is an
update to Lightspeed Pascal that overcomes at least some of these
deficiencies I might try it again. BTW, the version of Lightspeed
Pascal I'm using is 1.11a. Is there already a newer version and if
so what do I do to get it? Likewise, is there a newer version of
TurboPascal (I'm using 1.1) that is MF compatible and supports the
cursor keys?
A
--
Peter Steele, Microcomputer Applications Analyst
Acadia University, Wolfville, NS, Canada B0P1X0 (902)542-2201x121
UUCP: {uunet|watmath|utai|garfield}dalcs!aucs!Peter
BITNET: Peter@Acadia Internet: Peter%Acadia.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDUsinger@endor.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel) (05/25/88)
In article <1088@aucs.UUCP> peter@aucs.UUCP (Peter Steele) writes: >I had been using Turbo Pascal and had some minor complaints >with it: > > - not multifinder compatible > - cursor keys do not work > >I was told to switch to Lightspeed Pascal because it is so much >better. So, I went and bought a copy through a mail order house, >Macconnection I believe. The first thing I tried to do was convert >one of my TurboPascal programs. These are the complaints I have >about Lightspeed Pascal: > > - not multifinder compatible > - cursor keys do not work > - does not recognize Lisa Pascal's EXIT statement > - does not allow dereferencing to be used in > conjunction with type casting The above fixes and enhancements will be in version 2.0 > - does not recognize the newer toolbox routines and constants > (such as those dealing with the zoom box) For version 1.0 and 1.11, the "ROM85" interface file contains the 128K ROM routines & constants, and in version 1.11, there are interfaces to the new 256K ROM routines. > - screen update is slow and unintelligent in the editor, often The editor will be improved in version 2.0 > - compilation is very slow compared to Turbo Pascal (and other > compilers I've used). Really? What other compilers? On the Mac, there are Turbo, Lightspeed MPW, and TML Pascals. The last two are dog-slow, and Lightspeed P according to some stopwatch work, is within a hair of Turbo's speed. > - technique used for font selection of program source display > is very poor--I had to cycle through half a dozen fonts to get > to Monaco. This is improved for version 2.0. > - in general, not as compatible with Lisa Pascal as it should be Ditto. >I suspect I'd find more to complain about if I continued to use it, Yes, like the high-level symbolic debuggng with expression evaluation, ability to execute code fragments in context, and a graphical interface to see the stack frames, registers, and heap. And the project file to keep your sources up to date and only recompile that which needs to be recompiled. -Rich (Lightspeed Pascal Defender of the Faith) Rich Siegel Quality Assurance Technician THINK Technologies Division, Symantec Corp. Internet: singer@endor.harvard.edu UUCP: ..harvard!endor!singer Phone: (617) 275-4800 x305
adail@pnet06.cts.com (Alan Dail) (05/26/88)
the complaint for lightspeed pascal of
>- does not recognize the newer toolbox routines and constants
is partially wrong, the library ROM85 provides most of thes{, and
other libraries provide many more. Although the Mac II libraries
don't seem to be fully supported.
I have at least 2 complaints to add
- no undo
- 32K source code size limit.
{You shoule try MPW Pascal, it offers language features unavailable
in any other compiler, such as functions returning records, and
object pascal, just to name a couple.
For those who have been asking, MPW is available exc{usively from
APDA, the Apple Programmers and Developers Association. They
can be reached at 206/251-6548. Anyone who programs the Mac should
join APDA because they are the only place to get many of the tools
needed to program the Mac.
Alan Dail
UUCP: {crash uunet}!pnet06!adail
ARPA: crash!pnet06!adail@nosc.mil
INET: adail@pnet06.cts.comsinger@endor.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel) (05/29/88)
In article <192@hodge.UUCP> adail@pnet06.cts.com (Alan Dail) writes: >I have at least 2 complaints to add >- 32K source code size limit. 32K source size limit? Where did that come from? The limitation is not bound to the amount of source text that you have; it's more dependent on the number of units that you USE and on the density of your source code. In fact, the upcoming Lightspeed Pascal relaxes the restriction somewhat, and can load the MPW interface file "ToolIntf.p", which weighs in at about 43K bytes. >{You shoule try MPW Pascal, it offers language features unavailable >in any other compiler, such as functions returning records, and >object pascal, just to name a couple. Lightspeed Pascal functions can also return structured types such as strings and records, just to name a couple. >Anyone who programs the Mac should >join APDA because they are the only place to get many of the tools >needed to program the Mac. Agreed. >Alan Dail -Rich Rich Siegel, Lightspeed Pascal Defender of the Faith Rich Siegel Quality Assurance Technician THINK Technologies Division, Symantec Corp. Internet: singer@endor.harvard.edu UUCP: ..harvard!endor!singer Phone: (617) 275-4800 x305