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30th Anniversary of Pascal
GrokSoup writes "UC San Diego is holding a public symposium on Friday, October 22nd, honoring the 30th anniversary of the Pascal programming language. Oh the memories of undergraduate bubble-sorts ..."
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I too recall the heady days of Pascal in undergrad. Trying to explain to my lab partner how one could have an array of arrays... But that was a long time ago and I pose the question. What language is the "teaching language" now? Do they have Pascal?
..helping to get the basics before starting to learn c. Quite nice language, although not the best, but ive seen even an operating system in freepascal ;)
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
It has been ages since I've done anything in pascal...but my programming language progression went from BASIC, QBASIC, then Pascal. I've moved to other languages from there but it was quite the eye-opener. Variables had to be declared, the "uses CRT" was quite the drastic change from what I had been used to (if I remember correctly), and the overall approach was enlightening.
Now there are other languages to learn with (and a few of those aren't just for educational purposes). Java, PHP, and C for example. Even Delphi has kept Pascal alive and relevant.
Back then, I had to find...um...creative ways to be able to program and compile Pascal code. With all the freely available IDEs, compilers, debuggers, etc. around now for all these various languages (especially through OSS), things have become more accessible.
Pascal was the language that brought me out of my BASIC habits...for that I'm definitely grateful.
I didn't feel old, I've just been young longer than most /. readers.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Borland Pascal for Windows may have been a bit freakish but I don't see how you can say Delphi is or ever was.
I used Turbo Pascal for DOS to write real-mode device drivers that loaded before windows did that communicated and made callbacks to windows applications written in Delphi (using the DPMI 0.9 API)
There really was nothing that could not be done or hacked with Turbo Pascal (and assembly) and Delphi (and more assembly as needed).
Borland DID get windows, more than MS did.
None of MS widget wrappers around the raw windows API compare in any degree to Borlands excellent VCL (Visual Class Library) that encapsulated and extended windows in a most wonderful way.
I've seen people program in Delphi who only know how to program in C and it looked like it. Ugly, nasty code.
I've seen Delphi code written by people who understand object Pascal and it is a dream to behold. (I've done some good stuff too).
The reason Delphi didn't catch on enormously is partly to do with it not being a cross platorm language (object pascal I mean) butmostly for the same reasons smalltalk, scheme, EISA and so on didn't catch on. I wish I knew what that reason was.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
Or, if you really want to get anal:
program Anniversary (OUTPUT); {* define file used *}
begin
writeln ('Happy 30th Anniversary Pascal. You roxxorzz') {* semicolon not need before end *}
end.
Anonymous Cowards suck.
The reason Delphi didn't catch on enormously is partly to do with it not being a cross platorm language (object pascal I mean) butmostly for the same reasons smalltalk, scheme, EISA and so on didn't catch on. I wish I knew what that reason was.
I think the reason Delphi hasn't become mainstream is the same reason many other excellent products haven't. Microsoft cloned it with VB and kept just close enough behind that it was acceptable to choose the un-FUD'd development environment.
my two words: buffer overruns.
"I think this line is mostly filler"
And in certain circles, Pascal is still the language of choice. Lots of people who hack out basic native-code Windows software prefer Borland's Delphi IDE to any alternative. One reason is the programming language, which is actually an object-oriented extension of Pascal.
I spent 3 years at Borland, documenting their component libraries, which are mostly written in Delphi. I came to appreciate its simplicity and power. My job required me to go back and forth between Delphi and C++ (the same libraries are used in Borland's C++ products) and it was an object lesson (forgive the pun) in how painfully baroque C++ has become.
It's a pity that Pascal/Delphi has so thoroughly lost the language wars. But it has. Even if C++ hadn't thoroughly taken over native-code programming, Borland's bizarre and insular corporate culture would keep from spreading beyond a few fierce loyalists.
Dude,
You've got issues.
Are you suggesting that because Java implemented Vector in it's API library (which, by the way is now ArrayList in Java as well) that it somehow has a right to be the only language that implements Vector, and therefore call all other languages that implement vector a rip off?
Vector is a Collection, it's a concept that all people learn when studying computer science, so it makes sense to have that kind of 'dynamic array' in your API no matter what languahe it's in (python, java or c#).
What you're trying to say, that the subtle differences between languages are not enough to differentiate them. Yet in today's world of hi-level languages and managed runtimes, the only thing to differentiate between languages are the subtle differeces.
Look I don't really care which language is better (in your mind or anyone elses), the fact remains that untill C# came along with the newer language constructs and features, Java didn't even bother to implement them. So at the very least, the competition is spurring on development/innovation between the two companies.
Oh and by the way, doesn't your language also lend itself to the 'java is a rip off of C++' arguement, since they are so similar and c++ came first ?
It's apples and oranges dude, and your agument is a total troll.