[comp.org.acm] Turbo Vs Pascal.

nmouawad@watmath.waterloo.edu (Naji Mouawad) (05/10/91)

>  I am afraid that there is a standard for Pascal. The world will not
>  change just because you like Turbo. Other Pascals do not _need_ to
>  change at all, especially to a Turbo/Borland fast and dirty 
>  approach.
>
>+--------------------------------+--------------------------------------------+
>Kim Shearer                      |     ACSnet: kim@cs.uwa.oz.au

Hello Kim,

  What you said caught my attention, I have been programing in TP for
quiet a while now and although I am not 100 % satisfied with it, it remains
my language of choice.

 As I said in one of my previous postings, I *don't want* TP to become
a standard (in the ANSI sense). Standards are heavy and difficult to change.

 You seems to consider the Borland approach as "Fast and dirty". Could
you please explain why you believe that TP is not the right approach ?

 This is not a rethoretical question ! It seems as if you see something
in TP I don't and what best way to learn about a language we like than
to get someone's else opinion, especially if he dislike it !

 Cheers,

--Naji.
-- 
     -------------------------------------------------------------------
    | Naji Mouawad  |          nmouawad@watmath.waterloo.edu            |
    |  University   |---------------------------------------------------|
    | Of Waterloo   |   "The Stranger in us is our most familiar Self"  |

shack@cs.arizona.edu (David Shackelford) (05/11/91)

In article <1991May10.141756.17997@watmath.waterloo.edu> nmouawad@watmath.waterloo.edu (Naji Mouawad) writes:
>>                                      Other Pascals do not _need_ to
>>  change at all, especially to a Turbo/Borland fast and dirty 
>>  approach.
>>Kim Shearer                      |     ACSnet: kim@cs.uwa.oz.au

> You seems to consider the Borland approach as "Fast and dirty". Could
>you please explain why you believe that TP is not the right approach ?

>--Naji.

Kim,
  
"Fast and dirty"?  

Is it perhaps because a commercial organization created Turbo, and not
an academic one?  Just a stab in the dark here, and I don't want to
put words in your mouth.  Please elaborate on this position, as I've
never heard anyone say it quite that way.

Also, a general question for Turbo bashers -- what version of TP are
you basing your dislike on?  If it's earlier than 5.0, I invite you
to check out the newest features, including Units with seperate
compilation, and Objects (admittedly limited compared to true OOP,
but a step in the right direction!).

I do have a complaint about Turbo myself -- it's a PC only program,
and thus as non-portable as you can get.  My earlier statement that I
wished other Pascal's were more Turbo-like is that I'd rather not
change my own way of programming.  Selfish?  It's my opinion, you're
free to make your own!  

I viewed the differences between Turbo and Standard Pascal to be
enhancements on Turbo's part, but some have pointed out that there are
standard programs that TP doesn't have a clue what to do with.  Also,
it appears that standard Pascal is not the dead language the PC press
reports it to be.

As for what to use in the contests, the basic questions comes down
to "How many know the features of each type of Pascal", and "Which
Pascal runs best on the hardware for the contest".  I don't know
the answer to the first question.  On a PC, the answer to the second
question is Turbo because it has no competition.  If the contest
isn't run on PC's, then Turbo is out of the running.  SO if Pascal
is to be the language, it comes down to what the hardware is.

Dave    | shack@cs.arizona.edu

ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) (05/11/91)

In article <1501@caslon.cs.arizona.edu> shack@cs.arizona.edu (David Shackelford) writes:
:
>I do have a complaint about Turbo myself -- it's a PC only program,
>and thus as non-portable as you can get.  My earlier statement that I
:

Almost, but not quite.  You can port it to Unix by running it trough
a p2c filter.  Not a good solution at all, but not as non-portable
as one get either. 

In a more general note, turbo vs standard is one of these eternal
questions that pops up at cyclical intervals, is hotly debated for
awhile and then lies dormant for the next cycle to be triggered off
by someone's posting.  Not to say that it isn't an interesting
subject.  On the contrary.  The line usually becomes finally drawn
roughly between the purists who see the standards as an end, and the
practical application writers who see programming languages just as
tools.  The same plot is sometimes repeated under somewhat varying
subjects.  BTW, the pervious such cycle debated the horrors of
GoTos. 

...................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi
Moderating at garbo.uwasa.fi anonymous ftp archives 128.214.12.37
School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland
Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun

peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (05/13/91)

In article <1991May11.162922.9746@uwasa.fi> ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) writes:
> Almost, but not quite.  You can port it to Unix by running it trough
> a p2c filter.  Not a good solution at all, but not as non-portable
> as one get either. 

And now you have a nice C program that's got a fighting chance at portability.

So why not write in C in the first place?

The biggest problem with Turbo, and one that's *not* going away, is that in
streamlining Pascal a lot of the strong typing went out the window. The
result is a language that really isn't any safer than C.

So what's the point?
-- 
Peter da Silva; Ferranti International Controls Corporation; +1 713 274 5180;
Sugar Land, TX  77487-5012;         `-_-' "Have you hugged your wolf, today?"

dat0@diku.dk (Dat-0 undervisningsassistent) (05/15/91)

shack@cs.arizona.edu (David Shackelford) writes:

>Is it perhaps because a commercial organization created Turbo, and not
>an academic one?  Just a stab in the dark here, and I don't want to
>put words in your mouth.  Please elaborate on this position, as I've
>never heard anyone say it quite that way.

Quite possibly. See my distinction below.

[]

>I do have a complaint about Turbo myself -- it's a PC only program,
>and thus as non-portable as you can get.  My earlier statement that I
>wished other Pascal's were more Turbo-like is that I'd rather not
>change my own way of programming.  Selfish?  It's my opinion, you're
>free to make your own!  

>I viewed the differences between Turbo and Standard Pascal to be
>enhancements on Turbo's part, but some have pointed out that there are
>standard programs that TP doesn't have a clue what to do with.  Also,
>it appears that standard Pascal is not the dead language the PC press
>reports it to be.

In my opinion the differences are so many that it would be appropriate
to consider standard Pascal and Turbo Pascal to be two different
languages, even though they are closely related. This might seem to be
going to far, but I'll state two facts two support the claim:

1) Testing compatibility with Standard Pascal TurboPascal gets very
poor ratings (in one partivular test I saw, it only managed 50 %) and
I gather Standard Pascal would fare even worse in a test the other way
around.

2) Turbo Pascal does not follow the basic filosophy of Standards
Pascal. The case-statement is one example of this, but it is most
evident in the way Turbo Pascal manage procedures as parameters: You
make a the procedure or function a type! This is mixing two distinct
concepts namely data and algorithms. This mixture is taken from C (I
guess), where it is the logical way to handle things, but in Standard
Pascal it is in-alovable.

Mind you, this is not said to bash TurboPascal, merely to make it
clear that they are two different languages, with their seperat
purposeses.

Standard Pascal is a small, neat languages, well fittes to teach the
basics of programming and for solving smaller problems, but whenever
the code reaches a size about of 10K, it becomes hard to manages. SP
was newer intended to be a serius language, it was *meant* for
teaching.

Turbo Pascal on the other hand is a tool for the professional, with a
lot of possibilities to split the program in smaller units and with a
lot of premade modules to avoid tedious programming of I/O-manement,
mathematical formulas etc.

Viewed in this light the whole argument is just another
"my-languages-is-better-than-your-languages" religious war. Shouldn't
we use this newsgroup for something better.

That Turbo Pascal IMHO is an unholy mixture of C, standard Pascal and
Modula-2, well thats just *my* prejudice.

>As for what to use in the contests, the basic questions comes down
>to "How many know the features of each type of Pascal", and "Which
>Pascal runs best on the hardware for the contest".  I don't know
>the answer to the first question.  On a PC, the answer to the second
>question is Turbo because it has no competition.  If the contest
>isn't run on PC's, then Turbo is out of the running.  SO if Pascal
>is to be the language, it comes down to what the hardware is.

All too true. To many people think that TP is the standard, just
because on the PC-market it almost is.
-- 

Kristian Damm Jensen (dat0@diku.dk)
Institute of datalogi, University of Copenhagen (DIKU)
Universitetsparken 1, DK-2100 Copenhagen \, Denmark