Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!nntp.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: John Ames Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: naughty Pascal Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2026 09:14:02 -0800 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 25 Message-ID: <20260106091402.00000254@gmail.com> References: <10iu02q$1029n$12@dont-email.me> <10iu3g7$11u10$3@dont-email.me> <10iutjt$1c0aq$2@dont-email.me> <79ScnZHy-uXnP8n0nZ2dnZfqnPadnZ2d@giganews.com> <4oycne7Wk4RQ6sj0nZ2dnZfqnPidnZ2d@giganews.com> <10j48fv$2t1h9$12@dont-email.me> <10j5qgf$3etcd$6@dont-email.me> <10j60bb$3hhps$1@dont-email.me> <7cadnTBwKKzA68r0nZ2dnZfqn_idnZ2d@giganews.com> <10jak55$13ji1$2@dont-email.me> <20260105104946.00005ab4@gmail.com> <10ji02o$3f9k2$3@nntp.eternal-september.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2026 17:14:07 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="ce6fce244b408b41e7cc12ecf2215473"; logging-data="4191050"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX187shqqka5krkExEJ0cbUV0msWfJYMFDYg=" Cancel-Lock: sha1:C1zB/Km0tCxHKJONttjjUbvWnDY= X-Newsreader: Claws Mail 4.3.0 (GTK 3.24.42; x86_64-w64-mingw32) Xref: csiph.com comp.os.linux.misc:80592 alt.folklore.computers:233263 On Mon, 5 Jan 2026 20:37:59 -0700 Peter Flass wrote: > > However it WAS easy to extend the language - add in those Real > > World necessities. By the time Turbo Pascal hit the scene there > > really wasn't anything you could not do with Pascal. > > > > And I still write in Pascal fairly often - like it better than 'C'. > > I'm not sure to what extent there was an attempt early on to > standardize the extensions, but this would have helped adoption of > the language immensely. Yeah, that's the thing - anyone can extend a language by disregarding the original spec, changing what they don't like and adding what they want, and (re-)writing a compiler that adheres to their version, but then you have a different version with which the original language/ implementation is not compatible (and which may not even be a strict superset.) Get enough of those floating around, and it's the ol' Babel problem. That's not insurmountable (just look at how many microcomputer BASICs there were, and yet there was enough mutual intelligibility for people to publish books of computer games in source form, with tips in the back for tweaking things to run on particularly esoteric versions,) but it sure does make extra work for programmers :/