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- Newsgroups: comp.sys.cbm
- Path: howland.reston.ans.net!torn!news!a10
- From: a10@server.uwindsor.ca (Darren Fuerst)
- Subject: Re: Pontus Berg is a tool
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- Message-ID: <Dn121M.4Ln@news.uwindsor.ca>
- Sender: news@news.uwindsor.ca (Usenet)
- Organization: University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada
- References: <54@ppse.win-uk.net> <4fra4c$9cj@news.uncc.edu> <doug.cotton-1502960020560001@s115.the-spa.com>
- Date: Mon, 19 Feb 1996 14:39:22 GMT
-
- In article <doug.cotton-1502960020560001@s115.the-spa.com> doug.cotton@the-spa.com (Doug Cotton) writes:
- >As for Pascal, no it isn't tough to learn, but why spend all that extra
- >time typing, then have to wait for the program to compile before you can
- >even test it? I've seen no other language that beats BASIC for quick
- >program development, and if you really need the extra speed, chuck the
- >high-level languages and get your hands dirty with straight assembly.
- >Frankly, while Pascal has some good recursive capabilities, it was
- >designed as a teaching language, to force students to learn structured
- >programming. As such, it takes five times the typing to do something as
- >simple as BASIC's PRINT "HELLO WORLD".
-
- BASIC is fine for quick and dirty code, but when you get beyond a few
- hundred lines BASIC becomes a diaster waiting to happen. Assembly is
- great when speed and code size are at an absolute premium, but also
- presents some problems when you're writing large programs, unless you
- follow structured programming practices.
-
- Pascal is not just a teaching language -- witness the fact that a large
- amount of PC and Mac code is still done in Pascal (and we're talking
- commercial code here, not cobbled together PD junk). Yes, you do have to
- do a bit more typing, but with Pascal you only have to type it once.
- With identifier scope, long variable names, and real strucure it's easy
- to create module "libraries" and very large programs. Pascal is picky
- enough to catch many programming errors, and Pascal code is much easier to
- debug than BASIC or AL.
-
- You're right, of course, that Pascal programs have to be compiled before
- they will run -- so what? AL has to be assembled too.
-
- Darren
-
-