Mac Pascal

[Info-Mac]

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From: info-mac@uw-beaver
Newsgroups: fa.info-mac
Subject: Mac Pascal
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Date: Fri, 18-Jan-85 14:53:42 EST
Article-I.D.: uw-beave.475
Posted: Fri Jan 18 14:53:42 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 23-Jan-85 06:38:28 EST
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Organization: U of Washington Computer Science
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From: Vincent Manis

I've been evaluating Mac Pascal for a proposed microcomputer lab
for introductory computer science here. While I'm really impressed
with its capabilities, performance and reliability appear to be
unacceptable for introductory students. Here's a consolidated list
of things I've read on Info-Mac and things I've discovered for
myself which make me hesitant to endorse it as an introductory
tool:

I) Reliability problems

a) MacPascal disks become unbootable after a number of uses.
b) If a program is too large, one gets a system error with
no ability to save the program.
c) The version I got (in a nice Apple box and all) still seems
to have a number of bugs.

II) Performance

a) It takes a *long* time to compile largish programs.
b) Programs are recompiled from scratch each time they're run.

III) Design

a) It's unreasonable to expect a beginning student to be able
to manipulate windows sensibly. Unless you're careful,
you may not have execution windows on the screen, and therefore
not know whether your program is working.
b) The 'Pause' mechanism is clumsy, and doesn't always seem to
get listened to.

IV) Copy protection

a) You can't put it (reliably) on a hard disk.
b) If you're running on a 1-drive system, you (or at least an
unskilled user) will end up writing on the original disk,
which strikes me as dangerous (especially given some stories
of drives which eat disks).
c) You end up having to diddle the system folder on the distribution
disk if you want to change fonts (see b above).

As a result of these complaints, I'm fairly loath to recommend Mac Pascal
in the introductory courses (I'm already seriously considering MRI's
Modula-2 in the second-year course). If Apple/Think plan to fix these
problems, fine. If not, maybe there's some truth in the rumours that
Borland International is going to release Turbo Pascal for the Mac.