20th anniversary of Turbo Pascal

14 Comments

  1. jackol · February 19, 2003 Reply

    I’d still say Pascal is one of the best programming language ever and I pity all the kids who start off their programming with C++

    Yay boy! Amen to that!

    Today I go celebrate for Pascal! 😉

  2. admin · February 19, 2003 Reply

    Totally dude.. Pascal ROCKS 😉

  3. achitnis · February 19, 2003 Reply

    I remember, many years ago, when Wipro (who were selling Borland products then) had a “user meet” where people talked about various Borland development products.

    Many people came down heavily on Pascal – saying that it was a pointless language, unsuitable for development, and only good for teaching, not for commercial products.

    Right at the end, I stood up and talked about products I had developed using Turbo/Borland Pascal, and demonstrated some of them. I could tell by the hush that fell over the audience that they were impressed.

    But what really sealed it was what the moderator had to say at the end:

    “While many here are of the opinion that Pascal is unsuitable for commercial programming, may I point out that Atul is the only one here with a successful commercial product [CyberNet, a BBS software I had developed], and is actually making money – and his products are written in Pascal?”

    Bottomline – in the end, it is *what* you create, not what you create it *with*, that matters.

    I won’t say that Pscal is better than C/C++ – but Pascal sucks less 😉

  4. mythrocks · February 20, 2003 Reply

    I pity all the kids who start off their programming with C++…
    now that’s not very fair… you “pity” them?
    ( note_to_self:
    d: like pitying children for the language they speak first…
    m: is it the language that matters?…. finger-pointing-to-the-moon….
    c: borland has… issues…
    )

  5. mmk · February 20, 2003 Reply

    Score -1 Troll

    Was talking to VJ some day in PES, when he said something that was crystal clear. He said that people should be introduced to programming via C++/OOPS. The reason : think of the most fundamental concepts (math/life/CS), they are revealed in terms of objects: A for Apple, B for ball anyone?

  6. admin · February 20, 2003 Reply

    Its been proven many times that OOPS is not the basic fundamental way of thinking.. procedural method is. I am not saying c++ is bad… but I think.. learning pascal.. gives them the ease… and joy to work with programming. When you try to teach kids OOPS.. they will spend more time understanding OOPS then actual joy of programming

  7. admin · February 20, 2003 Reply

    hey its not pity.. I’m sorry I sounded too harsh 😉

    but myth.. you know the joy of programming in pascal ( procedural way I mean ). its not like OOPS is bad.. but kids will spend more time learning OOPS concepts then actually programming for fun

  8. mythrocks · February 20, 2003 Reply

    i wish i could agree…

    i can’t see why OOPS should be any harder to learn than procedural… personally, i feel it MIGHT actually be easier, in some cases…
    (note_to_self: d: none need subscribe to that point of view… )

    depends on what you’re upto, really… modelling interactions between… er… “things” is a whole lot more intuitive with objects… it’s easier to say:

    theCat.catch( theSquirrel ); // (note_to_self: c: tee hee hee…)

    than say

    A_catch_B( theCat, theSquirrel ) ; // ( note_to_self: c: A_catch_B_scratch_C()? )

    that said, i wouldn’t DREAM of object-oriented SORTING…

    THAT said, perhaps kids MIGHT better relate to “things” doing “stuff” to other “things”… not to say that the FIRST lesson in programming should be OO… but it’s in no way more difficult… the OO “concepts” can wait a coupla years…

    the point is, with c++, you have the choice of going either way… or BOTH ways…

    but myth.. you know the joy of programming in pascal ( procedural way I mean ).
    the joy of speech, to express your “self” trancends the language and the accent in which you speak… we know the joy of programming, period. i mean, who CARES what bus you took, so long as you’re here too…

    kids must code free-form… period.

  9. mythrocks · February 20, 2003 Reply

    When you try to teach kids OOPS…
    c++ > oops…

    i forget, is this oops vs procedural, or c++ vs Pascal?

  10. achitnis · February 20, 2003 Reply

    Re: Score -1 Troll

    Ah, I now understand the meaning of “Profundity is an end itself” 😉

    I don’t know what it was like for you – you probably instantiated your milkbottle as a baby, but in most normal humans, things go “do this, then do that, then do something else”.

    Example:

    Sleep
    Cry
    Feed
    Burp
    Poop
    Cry
    Get cleaned
    Sleep

    very linear, very procedural 😉

    Having been a professional programmer once upon a time, I forced myself to learn OOP when Borland introduced it in Borland Pascal and Delphi. The biggest problem I faced was the completely unnatural thought-processes behind the OOP concepts.

    I had great difficulty with loving my mom by abstracting my grandmom. I love mom. Period. 😉

    Look, I have no beef with people who like OOP (or C++), but *please* – leave life alone, will ya? 😉

  11. kvk · February 21, 2003 Reply

    Why Pascal is Not Kernighan’s Favorite Programming Language

    http://bit.csc.lsu.edu/tutorial/ten-commandments/bwk-on-pascal.html.

    Pascal was the first language I learned too 😎 That is the only reason I like it, which is not saying much technically.

  12. klooloola · February 21, 2003 Reply

    Re: Why Pascal is Not Kernighan’s Favorite Programming Language

    Funny but i was sitting in the line to the shrink when I notice the lady next to me reading the “why pascal is not my favorite language” paper.
    I borrowed the copy form her. She had two ? Why any normal people
    would carry two copies , one just to give away I dunno.
    But the point is that if you debate such topics endlessly like
    Linux vs BSD or C++ vs pascal, you will probably end up on the
    queue to the shrink too.

  13. kvk · February 21, 2003 Reply

    Re: Why Pascal is Not Kernighan’s Favorite Programming Language

    I was not trying to take sides in this case 🙂

    But, I do think that _technical_ debates on the relative merits of two things can be of benefit to many people. As a user/coder, I would like to hear from people who have travelled on similar roads before me.

    Just to clarify, I am not supporting bigotry of any sort.

    As to the queue to the shrink, anybody who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined, according to Goldwyn 😉

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