Re: Pascal for IIgs...

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

"Mike Westerfield" <MikeW50@aol.com> wrote:

>Charles Stephens <devnull@dobbs.eng.sun.com> wrote:
>
>>Pascal, while a good teaching language, is horrible.  I don't know of
>>anyone knocking down doors for Pascal programmers.
>>
>>C is your best bet in the job world, with Java a close runner up, if
>>not a tie these days.
>
>In my opinion, which is almost certainly better informed than 99.99% of the
>people who will read this since I use and have written compilers for both
>languages, Pascal is not horrible, and is a better language than C for many
>if not most purposes. Learning programming is one of them.

I agree.  I suppose it depends on what your goal is.  For the majority of
people using the Apple IIGS, learning a programming language is for
programming IIGS applications.  Since most IIGS users first learned
some BASIC programming on earlier Apple IIs, it follows that the the
choice of a IIGS language depends on how learnable it is for a BASIC
person.  Way back when I was using Apple IIs in school, I remember
"graduating" from BASIC to Apple UCSD Pascal.  The transition was
not so bad.  Pascal is very readable and understandable to someone
used to BASIC.  The structure of Pascal is also nice as it serves as
an introduction to most scripting languages like HyperTalk and
JavaScript (at least it made my learning of those two easier).

In fact, recently I've picked up a free Pascal compiler for Win 95 and
was able to put together some simple programs using a reference
book.

As for C, I tried to learn it, but the book didn't make much sense to
me at all.

I suppose if your goal is to get a job at a software company, C is the
ticket.  But if your goal is to write your own programs, especially for
a platform that needs more user created programs like the IIGS, it
makes sense to go for an easy to learn yet powerful language.  I vote
for Pascal.  BASIC is nice too, but the IIGS especially really needs a
compiled language for speed.