-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 12/12/06 15:23, Mike McCarty wrote: > [snip] > >> Eiffel eliminates that problem with its "expanded" classes. >> Modula-3 avoids that problem by having data structures that are *not* >> made of objects (in the technical OO sense) and that can be places off >> the heap, and in other objects. >> >> Modula-3 even goes the whole way to low-level system programming with >> its "unsafe" features. The difference between these and C++ or C is >> that you can't use them by accident; you have to explicitly mark the >> code that uses them as "unsafe". > > Modula-3 I'm not familiar with. There were two problems with Modula-II > (1) it was named Modula-II instead of Pascal-II > (2) it came along 10 years too late > > When C took over from Pascal, it was evident to all with eyes to see > that it was an inferior language /as a language/ to Pascal. However, > Pascal was also deliberately hamstrung. The language was designed for > beginning programmers, and had so many restraints and safety nets > that it couldn't be used for systems programming. Another issue > is that the language definition specified p-code as the output, > but one can leave that aside. > > What one cannot leave aside, for systems programming, is the places > where strong typing could not be broken when one needed to, > and where separate compilation was not supported. > > Another flaw in Pascal was that it was based on the successive > refinement model for software development, which was a failure. > In particular, nested procedures are a bad idea. So are local > variables hiding global variables, but C also has that defect. > But these features of the language can just not be used. No one > forces you to write nested procedures. > > But when C came along, Pascal was just not up to systems programming. > The only other alternative was assembler. C, bad as it is, is > superior to assembler. > > Had Modula-II come along in a timely manner, and been named Pascal-II > so people would have had a "warm fuzzy" feeling of familiarity, > then C would, I belive, have been the backwater, and not Modula-II. > >> Although I find these languages wordy, I still think it a great pity >> that C++ took off instead of them. > > Well, you've got my take on why that happened.
My recollection of the 1980s MS-DOS world was that Turbo Pascal's problems were it's small memory model and lack of modules until v4.0, by which time C had already taken over. - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Is "common sense" really valid? For example, it is "common sense" to white-power racists that whites are superior to blacks, and that those with brown skins are mud people. However, that "common sense" is obviously wrong. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFfyWVS9HxQb37XmcRAjCPAJ9iA0nkFK4urirReGWfzllCHrxxywCfaLmb B35h3MX6HBe0SlsOiz3IHNY= =Muj0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
