Re: PP Lament Results

[ken@tiamet.uucp (Ken O Burtch)]

Well, Dave, I see from your post that:
  1. you're upset with Treasures from Heaven.
  2. you're equating Pegausus Pascal with ORCA/Pascal.
Under the circumstances, I'll try to answer your questions as best as
I can.

Dave Roberts wrote:
>Ken O Burtch (ken@tiamet.uucp) wrote:
>[long post; possibly longer reply]
>: 1. It's too expensive.
>
>	Put simply, precompilers, no matter how many whiz-bang options
>they have, are going to cost more and take longer to compile than 
>actual code-generating compilers.
>[snipped Dave's purchase and endorsement of ORCA/C]
>Can you honestly say that your language has the portability
>of C? I highly doubt that.

C's portability has been the subject of many debates, and I certainly
am not going to start one here.  I never claimed that my language was
as portable as C -- but projects written in it _are_ portable.
  And I never claimed that you couldn't write applications in C -- just
and it's _faster_ and _easier_ to write them in Pegasus Pascal.  PP on 
average takes 1/2 longer to compile (the bigger your project,
the faster your compiles go because of the "project caching", BTW).
  With PP's error-resistant syntax (see example later), you don't have ANY
compiling errors due to missing semi-colons or curly brackets (in C talk).
According to one university study, and echoed in my experience, that cuts
the number of recompiles by half.  So although your compiles take longer,
there are less of them, and your development time is reduced by 25% (ie.
1.5 / 2, and that doesn't include the saving from the "whiz-bang" options).

>: 3. I prefer (or have to) work in another language.
>:    Again, lots of reasons.  Novice programmers don't want to learn
>:    anything more complicated than BASIC (and I don't blame them).
>:    Some people use C at work, and want to use C at home.  Still
>:    others said that nobody is making new software, so why does
>:    anyone need to buy/learn a new, if more powerful, language?
>
>	I was a novice programmer two years or so ago. I learned C
>as my first language. It wasn't at all difficult. What you're saying
>isn't true. Quite frankly, I doubt that your language is more powerful
>than C. I've done enough programming in C to know that I've barely
>scratched the surface in terms of flexibility and coding style.

These were the reasons stated in the posts and the email.  If any part
of them isn't true, tell that the people who wrote them--I only repeated
what they said.
  If you started with C, good for you.  However, I have heard from many
programmers who started with BASIC and found C and Pascal too intimidating.
After years of tutoring computer classes at university, I can honestly say
that serious programming (and serious languages) aren't for everyone.
  I don't see how you can say C is more powerful that PP when you've never
used PP.  Do you want me to mail you a copy of the demo?  Otherwise, leave
these kind of claims to those who have used it.  If you're worried about
losing your favorite features of C, ask me and I'll let you know if PP has
them.

>: c. There aren't that many IIgs programmers anymore. (Kenrick Mock)
>:    [snipped Ken's strong agreement]
>
>	This is true, but the few remaining programmers have been quite 
>productive without your superlanguage. Why should this change?

I fail to see your point.  What's wrong with being more productive,
especially with fewer programmers around?  I think Apple IIgs users
everywhere would cheer to hear this news.

>: g. Why learn an oddball language when the IIgs isn't forever? (D. Empson)
>:    I added the cross-compiling features to compensate for the "oddball"-
>:    ness of the language.  Just because you write a program in Pegasus
>:    Pascal doesn't mean that you're software is orphaned on the IIgs.
>:    Programmers who are afraid of the shrinking IIgs market can develop
>:    a program and then cross-compile it for another machine.
>
>	I'm not sure what you mean by this; if you mean developing DOS/
>UNIX/etc projects on your IIgs, that's one of the silliest ideas I've
>ever heard. Besides, since your language is a precompiler, isn't this just
>dumping out Pascal sources and let Turbo Pascal or whatever compile it?

For developing on the IIgs, see my response to David Empson's question.
  Turbo Pascal's source format is quite different from that that of
ORCA/Pascal.  PP will do a proper translation, including compiler directives.

>: [ snipped Ken's Treasures/Heaven example of platfrom independence ]
>
>	BTW, Treasures From Heaven is _not_ a game I'd like demonstrating
>the power of my language. It had the slowest, most flickery animation
>combined with a totally repugnant user interface in addition to taking
>a sickening amount of disk space for such small results. Sorry to be so
>cutting, but this game is one of the things that turned me off to
>Pegasus Pascal in the first place.
>

That's not "cutting" -- that's abusive and insulting.  If you don't like TFH,
don't pay the shareware fee.  (If you want to start a new thread about TFH
with some legitimate questions, post away.)
   As far as the PP and TFH goes, I was only using it as an example of
platform independence.  I used ORCA/M for all animation, music and the
main game loop -- PP is used for the pile collapses, score keeping, etc.

>:     If you point is that UNIX-like shells like ORCA and GNO are obsolete,
>: [ snipped Ken's description of scrapped desktop interface for PP ]
>
>	Not at all. UNIX-like shells like GNO (ORCA is in no way unixlike)
>are powerful, flexible development platforms. Mainstream programmers
>almost always develop under text based shells as opposed to slow, crashy
>graphical interfaces like ORCA's prizm.
>

I meant ORCA is UNIX like in the sense it has pipes, I/O redirection,
disk-based utilities, stream orientation, etc, etc, just like GNO.
  Prizm is slow and crashy, and a bad example since desktop development
platforms on the Mac crush Prizm flat.  Good desktop environments on
other machines offer solid alternatives -- Personally, I would like to have
a nice, fast little desktop environment for the IIgs -- what better way
to write desktop program than from the desktop?  It's too bad TML Pascal
II turned out so buggy.

>: [ snipped Ken's attempts to contact Procyon ]
>
>Email bazyar@netcom.com. Maybe it's that notoriously lacking
>Canadian Postal Service ;)

I did.

>:    So why aren't IIgs applications written in Applesoft?
>:    Inertia is no excuse: is anyone really comfortable grappling around
>:    with curly brackets in C, or having typos taken as legitimate
>:    commands?
>
>  
>	AppleSoft is not C. Within C, you can access 90% of the IIgs's
>resources, and add inline assembly to access the other 10%. Curly
>brackets are the most elegant form of command nesting I've ever come 
>in contact with, but if you enjoy those classy PROCEDURE..END statements,
>you can #define BEGIN { if you so desire. Can your language (beer) do this?
>

You bet: you can define macros.
  But there is no begin..end (or {...}) in Pegasus Pascal.  The
most eligant form of command nesting is to follow the program indentation
like PP does, and to discard things like {...} which are redundant and only
only serve to generate pointless syntax errors.

| Pegasus Pascal                   /* C                               */
| (This is your program)           /* (This is your program on drugs) */

while x > y and y <> z             while (x > y && y != z) {
  inc x                                  x++;
  if x > z                               if (x > y)
     WriteLn 'Just a sample'                printf("Just a sample\n");
                                   };
Any questions?                                   

-- 
Ken O Burtch (Quest/Hoard, Pegasus Pascal, DrawTools): Pegasoft
Alternate email :ncrcan!coutts!tiamet!ken@uunet.ca   : R.R.#1 Honsberger Ave
Bio: 28;BSc,UI,Lang,Games;Toons,Elves,SF,Pizza;Xian  : Jordan Station,ON,Canada
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