On Tue, May 26, 2020 at 12:22 AM Dave Horsfall 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.” 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.