Re: pascal system

["John B. Matthews" <nospam@nospam.com>]

In article <1149652019.087859.222860@c74g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
 "mdj" <mdj.mdj@gmail.com> wrote:

> John B. Matthews wrote:
> 
> > One might argue that the Pascal language itself met "a fate similar to
> > Algol". Indeed, Pascal shares some syntax with Algol. Of course, Pascal
> > lives on in FPC, GNU Pascal and Delphi, as well as more recent languages
> > like Ada.
> 
> Agree. Pascal was designed for teaching after all, and lacks a lot of
> features you need to build larger programs. The typing system is too
> constrained to build reusable code.

I don't understand how strong typing vitiates reuse. Ada is even more 
strongly typed than Pascal, but it enjoys excellent reuse*. Java, too. I 
would think that strong typing helps to enforce the interface- 
implementation contract and to enhance reuse. I seems to me that Pascal 
reuse is hindered more by variations in dialect than by type safety.

*reuse without testing, notwithstanding:-)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5_Flight_501>

> Most of these things were fixed in extensions over time, hence Delphi
> lives on, but other languages from the era live on longer since there
> was less to be fixed.
> 
> Matt

-- 
John Matthews
jmatthews at wright dot edu
www dot wright dot edu/~john.matthews/