On Tue, May 26, 2020 at 12:22 AM Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
On Sat, 23 May 2020, Clem Cole wrote:
[...] Pascal tries to be the answer, but I think
it suffered from the
fact that it makes Pascal a production quality language, you had a
extend it and everybody's extensions were different.
Perhaps I'm the only one here, but when I was taught Pascal (possibly by
Dr. Lions himself) it was emphasised to us that it was not a production
language bur a *teaching* language; you designed your algorithm, debugged
it with the Pascal compiler, then hand-translated it into your favourite
language (and debugged it again :-/).
Dave that was exactly my point. Pascal was designed as a teaching
language so
Wirth did not put things into the language that made it helpful
as a production language. So everyone else tried and the language became
a mess. Everybody peed on it. Dennis' quote: “When I read commentary
about suggestions for where C should go, I often think back and give thanks
that it wasn't developed under the advice of a worldwide crowd.”
<https://www.inspiringquotes.us/quotes/eDQR_hqwtHAC9>
It's not that you could not turn Pascal into a production language, but
every attempt to try to do so was done in a different manner. And within
firms it was always different. Eight different 'Tek Pascal'
implementations -- all close, but different - he says shaking his head.