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Pascal and C where the two most used languages in the kind of software development world I was living in around 1990, hobby, university and consulting, UNIX and

Pascal and C where the two most used languages in the kind of software development world I was living in around 1990, hobby, university and consulting, UNIX and some Windows. I remember reading one Oberon and one Modula 2 paper. I didn't know anybody using them to build anything real. Pascal had its heyday on DOS and Windows with Turbo Pascal and Delphi. It slowly faded away because everybody started building GUIs with Visual BASIC instead, or Visual C++ for the very technical people. Then came the web and Java and PHP and the early Linux corporate adoption and by 2000 it was buried under a geological layer.

kmoser 4y ago
Modula-2 was definitely a niche language. Back in the late 1980s I wrote an add-on to a commercial Modula-2 library that earned me a few bucks. Literally, a few bucks. I used Logitech's Modula-2 compiler, which I don't remember being slow, but Turbo C and Turbo Pascal were far more popular, likely because of their fast compilation speed.
bhaak 4y ago
> I remember reading one Oberon and one Modula 2 paper. I didn't know anybody using them to build anything real. FWIW there was a huge following for the Wirth languages on the Amiga. I don't quite know how that came about but at times it felt like the programs written with Modula-2 or Oberon were as numerous as the ones written in C or Assembler. That was mostly for Public Domain, Freeware, and Shareware software though.
- MarcusE1W 4y ago
  I have bought the M2 Amiga Modula-2 compiler after saving my pocket money for ages. It came with complete modules/interfaces to the native Amiga system libraries and the type system prevented you from shooting into your own foot at every corner. Amiga system developed is very pointer heavy. Modula-2 could not prevent all issues but at least catch some. Made sense to me at the time. Plus I could do my computer homework in Modula-2 on my Amiga and then quickly rewrite it to Turba Pascal in school

kmoser 4y ago

Modula-2 was definitely a niche language. Back in the late 1980s I wrote an add-on to a commercial Modula-2 library that earned me a few bucks. Literally, a few bucks. I used Logitech's Modula-2 compiler, which I don't remember being slow, but Turbo C and Turbo Pascal were far more popular, likely because of their fast compilation speed.

bhaak 4y ago

> I remember reading one Oberon and one Modula 2 paper. I didn't know anybody using them to build anything real. FWIW there was a huge following for the Wirth languages on the Amiga. I don't quite know how that came about but at times it felt like the programs written with Modula-2 or Oberon were as numerous as the ones written in C or Assembler. That was mostly for Public Domain, Freeware, and Shareware software though.

MarcusE1W 4y ago
I have bought the M2 Amiga Modula-2 compiler after saving my pocket money for ages. It came with complete modules/interfaces to the native Amiga system libraries and the type system prevented you from shooting into your own foot at every corner. Amiga system developed is very pointer heavy. Modula-2 could not prevent all issues but at least catch some. Made sense to me at the time. Plus I could do my computer homework in Modula-2 on my Amiga and then quickly rewrite it to Turba Pascal in school