[Cialug] Question?

[David Champion]

Kevin C. Smith wrote:

> With dotnet and mono coming to linux. I was woundering --
> Why not pascal?
> 
> It seems to not get the attention of c, c++, or mono.
> But, It can be compiled for Linux or Windows, maybe OSX?
> 
> I'm not a programmer, and was basically wondering why Pascal seems left
> out of the debate. Seem to me it would also run faster then VB.net or Mono
> since produces compiled programs.
> 
> Technical issues I'm not aware of maybe?
> I took a programming class in college (Pascal) and thinking of looking
> into the language again. I found this:
> http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/
> and
> http://www.borland.com/kylix/index.html
> 

Pascal has the stigma of being an academic language, and other than some 
dialects of it like Kylix, it hasn't really ever taken off in the 
commercial world. However, Pascal has influenced a lot of other 
languages, and it's origninal author has long since moved on to other 
more modern / OO languages.

There was at one time an entire OS based on Pascal - the UCSD P-System. 
I had an orphan machine called a "Stride Micro" that ran it that I 
played with for a while. I ended up giving it back to a guy who worked 
for Stride.

-dc