5 Aug
2008
5 Aug
'08
4:29 p.m.
bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca wrote:
Well I knew It was a BIG learning center. Intellectual
property and
$$$ for ideas, don't promote the exchange new ideas in the computer
field. It is just strange that you got all that hype about Pascal and
other laguages after
Apple II came out with pascal, and then nothing is heard about it again.
Just what happened to it?
IMNSHO, UCSD contributed more to the popularity of Pascal than anyone
else with the possible exception of Borland's Turbo Pascal.
If Pascal didn't remain in the forefront, it's certainly not because of
any improper or negligent act on UCSD's part.
My own take on why Pascal has mostly faded away is that it was intended
as an instructional language, and was missing features people needed for
real software development. UCSD added some of those features, and Turbo
Pascal added more, but there was never a usable Pascal standard. ISO
Level 1 Pascal just doesn't cut it.
A perhaps slightly more interesting question is why Ada didn't achieve
greater popularity than it has.
Then again, Algol 60 is an improvement over many of its successors.
Eric