pascal

pascal
    n 1: a unit of pressure equal to one newton per square meter
         [syn: {pascal}, {Pa}]
    2: French mathematician and philosopher and Jansenist; invented
       an adding machine; contributed (with Fermat) to the theory of
       probability (1623-1662) [syn: {Pascal}, {Blaise Pascal}]
    3: a programing language designed to teach programming through a
       top-down modular approach
    

Pascal
 n.

   An Algol-descended language designed by Niklaus Wirth on the CDC 6600
   around 1967--68 as an instructional tool for elementary programming.
   This language, designed primarily to keep students from shooting
   themselves in the foot and thus extremely restrictive from a
   general-purpose-programming point of view, was later promoted as a
   general-purpose tool and, in fact, became the ancestor of a large
   family of languages including Modula-2 and Ada (see also
   {bondage-and-discipline language}). The hackish point of view on
   Pascal was probably best summed up by a devastating (and, in its
   deadpan way, screamingly funny) 1981 paper by Brian Kernighan (of
   {K&R} fame) entitled Why Pascal is Not My Favorite Programming
   Language, which was turned down by the technical journals but
   circulated widely via photocopies. It was eventually published in
   Comparing and Assessing Programming Languages, edited by Alan Feuer
   and Narain Gehani (Prentice-Hall, 1984). Part of his discussion is
   worth repeating here, because its criticisms are still apposite to
   Pascal itself after many years of improvement and could also stand as
   an indictment of many other bondage-and-discipline languages. (The
   entire essay is available at
   http://www.lysator.liu.se/c/bwk-on-pascal.html.) At the end of a
   summary of the case against Pascal, Kernighan wrote:

  9. There is no escape

  This last point is perhaps the most important. The language is
  inadequate but circumscribed, because there is no way to escape its
  limitations. There are no casts to disable the type-checking when
  necessary. There is no way to replace the defective run-time
  environment with a sensible one, unless one controls the compiler
  that defines the "standard procedures". The language is closed.

  People who use Pascal for serious programming fall into a fatal
  trap. Because the language is impotent, it must be extended. But
  each group extends Pascal in its own direction, to make it look
  like whatever language they really want. Extensions for separate
  compilation, FORTRAN-like COMMON, string data types, internal
  static variables, initialization, octal numbers, bit operators,
  etc., all add to the utility of the language for one group but
  destroy its portability to others.

  I feel that it is a mistake to use Pascal for anything much beyond
  its original target. In its pure form, Pascal is a toy language,
  suitable for teaching but not for real programming.

   Pascal has since been entirely displaced (mainly by {C}) from the
   niches it had acquired in serious applications and systems
   programming, and from its role as a teaching language by Java.
    

Pascal

   <language> (After the French mathematician {Blaise Pascal}
   (1623-1662)) A programming language designed by {Niklaus
   Wirth} around 1970.  Pascal was designed for simplicity and
   for teaching programming, in reaction to the complexity of
   {ALGOL 68}.  It emphasises {structured programming}
   constructs, data structures and {strong typing}. Innovations
   included {enumeration types}, {subranges}, sets, {variant
   records}, and the {case statement}.  Pascal has been extremely
   influential in programming language design and has a great
   number of variants and descendants.

   ANSI/IEEE770X3.97-1993 is very similar to {ISO Pascal} but
   does not include {conformant arrays}.

   ISO 7185-1983(E).  Level 0 and Level 1.  Changes from Jensen &
   Wirth's Pascal include name equivalence; names must be bound
   before they are used; loop index must be local to the
   procedure; formal procedure parameters must include their
   arguments; {conformant array schemas}.

   An ALGOL-descended language designed by Niklaus Wirth on the
   CDC 6600 around 1967--68 as an instructional tool for
   elementary programming.  This language, designed primarily to
   keep students from shooting themselves in the foot and thus
   extremely restrictive from a general-purpose-programming point
   of view, was later promoted as a general-purpose tool and, in
   fact, became the ancestor of a large family of languages
   including Modula-2 and {Ada} (see also {bondage-and-discipline
   language}).  The hackish point of view on Pascal was probably
   best summed up by a devastating (and, in its deadpan way,
   screamingly funny) 1981 paper by Brian Kernighan (of {K&R}
   fame) entitled "Why Pascal is Not My Favourite Programming
   Language", which was turned down by the technical journals but
   circulated widely via photocopies.  It was eventually
   published in "Comparing and Assessing Programming Languages",
   edited by Alan Feuer and Narain Gehani (Prentice-Hall, 1984).
   Part of his discussion is worth repeating here, because its
   criticisms are still apposite to Pascal itself after ten years
   of improvement and could also stand as an indictment of many
   other bondage-and-discipline languages.  At the end of a
   summary of the case against Pascal, Kernighan wrote:

   9. There is no escape

   This last point is perhaps the most important.  The language
   is inadequate but circumscribed, because there is no way to
   escape its limitations.  There are no casts to disable the
   type-checking when necessary.  There is no way to replace the
   defective run-time environment with a sensible one, unless one
   controls the compiler that defines the "standard procedures".
   The language is closed.

   People who use Pascal for serious programming fall into a
   fatal trap.  Because the language is impotent, it must be
   extended.  But each group extends Pascal in its own direction,
   to make it look like whatever language they really want.
   Extensions for {separate compilation}, Fortran-like COMMON,
   string data types, internal static variables, initialisation,
   {octal} numbers, bit operators, etc., all add to the utility
   of the language for one group but destroy its portability to
   others.

   I feel that it is a mistake to use Pascal for anything much
   beyond its original target.  In its pure form, Pascal is a toy
   language, suitable for teaching but not for real programming.

   Pascal has since been almost entirely displaced (by {C}) from
   the niches it had acquired in serious applications and systems
   programming, but retains some popularity as a hobbyist
   language in the {MS-DOS} and {Macintosh} worlds.

   See also {Kamin's interpreters}, {p2c}.

   ["The Programming Language Pascal", N. Wirth, Acta Informatica
   1:35-63, 1971].

   ["PASCAL User Manual and Report", K. Jensen & N. Wirth,
   Springer 1975] made significant revisions to the language.

   [BS 6192, "Specification for Computer Programming Language
   Pascal", {British Standards Institute} 1982].

   [{Jargon File}]

   (1996-06-12)