Scott Moore wrote:
> akarl wrote:
>
>> Why bother with Pascal when we have better and more recent languages
>> such as Oberon (and Modula)?
>
>
> Several reasons actually.
>
> 1. Compatibility. If you were a Wirth fan you would have replaced your
> entire language every 10 years [A].
As you say (below), Oberon is the last.
> 2. Equivalence. Pascal has been updated to have everything Oberon and
> modula have, and be backwards compatible.
But then we are not talking about Pascal. I can't imagine any of the
extensions being as clean as Oberon.
> 3. Do***entation and standards. Pascal was standardized, which neither
> Oberon nor Modula were, and many, many books and papers exist on
> Pascal.
As far as Oberon is concerned, the Oberon re****t and the Oakwood
Guidelines is the standard.
> 4. User base. There are still many times the number of users of Pascal
> than those languages.
With this argument no new languages would ever be accepted.
> 5. Code base. There is a huge body of code in existence for Pascal.
Most Oberon compilers can use foreign library routines.
> [A] Yes, every 10 years:
>
> 1969 Wirth designs Pascal
> 1975 Wirth designs Modula
> 1989 Wirth designs Oberon
> 1999 Wirth retires !
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