Re: Pascal vs. linkers, was The History of the ALGOL Effort

=?ISO-8859-1?Q?J=FCrgen_Kahrs?= <Juergen.Kahrs@vr-web.de>
16 Sep 2006 15:56:54 -0400

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[9 earlier articles]
Re: Pascal vs. linkers, was The History of the ALGOL Effort bonzini@gnu.org (Paolo Bonzini) (2006-09-12)
Re: Pascal vs. linkers, was The History of the ALGOL Effort Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com (Peter Flass) (2006-09-12)
Re: Pascal vs. linkers, was The History of the ALGOL Effort news@tom.iecc.com (2006-09-12)
Re: Pascal vs. linkers, was The History of the ALGOL Effort wclodius@lanl.gov (2006-09-12)
Re: Pascal vs. linkers, was The History of the ALGOL Effort cbarron413@adelphia.net (Carl Barron) (2006-09-13)
Re: Pascal vs. linkers, was The History of the ALGOL Effort walter@bytecraft.com (Walter Banks) (2006-09-16)
Re: Pascal vs. linkers, was The History of the ALGOL Effort Juergen.Kahrs@vr-web.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?J=FCrgen_Kahrs?=) (2006-09-16)
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From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?J=FCrgen_Kahrs?= <Juergen.Kahrs@vr-web.de>
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: 16 Sep 2006 15:56:54 -0400
Organization: Compilers Central
References: 06-08-08206-08-086 06-08-105 06-08-138 06-09-050 06-09-052 06-09-071
Keywords: Pascal, history
Posted-Date: 16 Sep 2006 15:56:54 EDT

wclodius@lanl.gov wrote:


> There were so many reasons for the failures of Wirth's languages that
> it is difficult to understand how they became popular for significant
> lenghts of time


Learning Wirth's languages was easy because of their simplicity.
Writing a compiler for Wirth's languages was also easy.
This should explain the popularity of his languages.
Wirth once said that his Modula compiler was just 5000 lines long.
While an ADA compiler (at that time) needed about 50000 lines (said Wirth).


> 1. Lack of separate compilation


This is true, but only up to Pascal.


> 6. A consistent lack of interest in any form of standardization. As


This is true, and he also explained his lack of interest. He saw
himself as a scientist, working at a University. From his point of
view, it was up to the industry to set standards.


In spite of all the shortcomings of Wirth's languages, we should
recognize that today's dominant languages (C++ and Java) still suffer
from their C-legacy and in many respects they are still struggling to
reach the level of sophistication of Pascal.


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