Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Ben Bacarisse Newsgroups: comp.programming Subject: Re: Is Pascal utterly useless? Date: Tue, 06 Aug 2019 15:57:26 +0100 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 23 Message-ID: <87k1bql4tl.fsf@bsb.me.uk> References: <87zhkrkyq4.fsf@bsb.me.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Info: reader02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="8ecae9d50815136f6eba00009ed91c33"; logging-data="26234"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+bxAVR2TpcM1KSbN3Kta2Hy+LLcPIwm4M=" Cancel-Lock: sha1:lGKg7VykPNjtVjwhMNWq5daErSw= sha1:+7TIdPjxObAtVTI7OUpwkZTKSog= X-BSB-Auth: 1.522f9eec652722b27ce6.20190806155726BST.87k1bql4tl.fsf@bsb.me.uk Xref: csiph.com comp.programming:10126 Peter Percival writes: > It seems strange to me that Pascal was invented to teach programming, > but I can't imagine a university-level course in programming that > didn't have at least one problem requiring a group of students to > produce a program with each member doing a bit of the coding. Which > rather makes Pascal useless for its original purpose, never mind > industrial work. The world of programming was a very different one in 1970. Why would you want students to learn the JCL magic that tells the CDC 6000 operator to install the tape that contains the compiled module from student A just so that it can be linked with student B's code when they can just put the card desks together? Cooperative programming was leaving a blue card sticking out of the deck where that routine you didn't write should go! By the time interactive editors, PCs and cheap multi-user mini systems came along, every actual Pascal implementation had some sort of support for modules. -- Ben.