Noah Silva on Wed, 10 Jul 2002 00:26:19 -0400


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Re: [PLUG] Pascal?


> > > But I'd rather keep using all C-style functions only and only use c++ for
> > > improving things that weren't in c all ready. My point is I don't want to
> > > have printf and cout b/c I think it's a mess. I guess the answer to this
> > > is not to use C-style functions at all.
> >
> > If you aren't going to make any C-style function calls, then what system
> > library do you plan on using?
> 
> I get it. Everything is in c anyway, but other languages have a place.
> 

Well this is something that I think is a valid point, and needs to be
dealt with.  Borland has dealt with it by:
a.) Providing pre-done pascal interfaces for common system functions and
DLLs.
b.) Pascal has pascal string to C string (ASCIIZ) conversion routines
standard.
etc.

But still... I find some windows DLL I want to use, and I have to find
the C header and translate it.  There are automated tools to do this, so
it's not a big deal, but I think it needs to be thought about.  The
reason SmallTalk and Eiffel, etc. aren't useful is because...  I can
download a library in Pascal or C for OpenGL, Lotus Notes, SCSI
interfaces, MySQL, Gnome, etc.  Where is this stuff for SmallTalk?
nowhere last time I checked.  It -is- there is many if not most cases
for pascal, and what isn't there is easy to port.

I would like to see more advanced [compiled] languages thrive, but there
needs to be an easy to pick what you want to use, and that means that we
need to have libraries that can easily inter-operate, and ways to use
existing bindings.  This to me, is the positive effect that including C
in C++ had.  This was why I said it would be interesting to have a
pascal compiler that would let me declare C procedures and/or data
types.

 -- noah silva 


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