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I did, in 1986 through 88. The only extension it had was separate compilation. (This was on PDOS running on a 68000, for the morbidly curious.) And I agree w

I did, in 1986 through 88. The only extension it had was separate compilation. (This was on PDOS running on a 68000, for the morbidly curious.) And I agree with WalterBright. Unextended C was far more usable than unextended Pascal.

pjmlp 3y ago
From the looks of Small-C and RatC not really that usable. During the 1980's there was already several usable Pascal alternatives, plus Modula-2 came out in 1978 exactly to fix the shortcomings of Pascal without extensions, and the largely ignored ISO Extended Pascal came in 1991, retifying many of the 1980's common extensions. Using original Pascal, was really when there was no alternative, like myself trying to fit some form of Pascal compiler into a 48 KB on top of Timex 2068 ROM, which naturally wouldn't fit. Neither did the Darthmound BASIC JIT compiler for that matter, or one of those Small-C / RatC alternatives.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  I remember the Modula-2 crowd being rather bitter that the advent of C++ sunk M-2. One of the M-2 compiler guys ruefully said to me "I backed the wrong horse." (Zortech C++ had taken the PC market by storm then.) The success of ZTC++ is why Borland changed direction from Pascal to C++. I heard rumors that Microsoft had been internally developing its own OOP language, but abandoned it and switched to C++ also after the success of ZTC++.
  - unscaled 3y ago
    Borland did keep supporting Pascal in addition to C++ then, no? They introduced Object Pascal with Turbo Pascal 5.5 IIRC, and later kept extending that with Delphi. As far as I know, their strategy was playing both Pascal and C++ up through the bitter end with Delphi and C++ Builder. I don't know which of them, C++ or Pascal/Delphi, but Delphi was certainly popular enough at its heyday. Obviously, Object Pascal was a very far cry from the Pascal User Manual and Report, and even at its extended version it was strictly less powerful than C++, so your point still stands. But it was more beginner-friendly. In my opinion, the moment you got beyond the basics (no pun intended), it was friendlier than BASIC or Visual Basic, while far more powerful. That was quite a sweet spot. Once I felt comfortable with C++, I couldn't go back to Pascal. Even with the extensions, there were some things that were too painful for me like lack of RAII, lack of Generics, short strings by default. Perhaps some of these are addressed by Free Pascal or modern versions of Delphi nowadays, but that ship has sailed. I feel like Pascal with its extensions worked great in the 1980s and 1990s, and I have very fond memories of my time using it, but it just doesn't have much to offer anymore. There are other beginner friendly languages out there that are powerful enough and have better tooling and far larger communities. And it was all about the tooling and community all along.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    To this day, many of the C++ Builder libraries are actually written in Object Pascal Delphi's dialect from Borland.
  - bw86 3y ago
    Are you ever wondering what would have been if you had not written a C++ compiler?

pjmlp 3y ago

From the looks of Small-C and RatC not really that usable. During the 1980's there was already several usable Pascal alternatives, plus Modula-2 came out in 1978 exactly to fix the shortcomings of Pascal without extensions, and the largely ignored ISO Extended Pascal came in 1991, retifying many of the 1980's common extensions. Using original Pascal, was really when there was no alternative, like myself trying to fit some form of Pascal compiler into a 48 KB on top of Timex 2068 ROM, which naturally wouldn't fit. Neither did the Darthmound BASIC JIT compiler for that matter, or one of those Small-C / RatC alternatives.

WalterBright 3y ago
I remember the Modula-2 crowd being rather bitter that the advent of C++ sunk M-2. One of the M-2 compiler guys ruefully said to me "I backed the wrong horse." (Zortech C++ had taken the PC market by storm then.) The success of ZTC++ is why Borland changed direction from Pascal to C++. I heard rumors that Microsoft had been internally developing its own OOP language, but abandoned it and switched to C++ also after the success of ZTC++.
- unscaled 3y ago
  Borland did keep supporting Pascal in addition to C++ then, no? They introduced Object Pascal with Turbo Pascal 5.5 IIRC, and later kept extending that with Delphi. As far as I know, their strategy was playing both Pascal and C++ up through the bitter end with Delphi and C++ Builder. I don't know which of them, C++ or Pascal/Delphi, but Delphi was certainly popular enough at its heyday. Obviously, Object Pascal was a very far cry from the Pascal User Manual and Report, and even at its extended version it was strictly less powerful than C++, so your point still stands. But it was more beginner-friendly. In my opinion, the moment you got beyond the basics (no pun intended), it was friendlier than BASIC or Visual Basic, while far more powerful. That was quite a sweet spot. Once I felt comfortable with C++, I couldn't go back to Pascal. Even with the extensions, there were some things that were too painful for me like lack of RAII, lack of Generics, short strings by default. Perhaps some of these are addressed by Free Pascal or modern versions of Delphi nowadays, but that ship has sailed. I feel like Pascal with its extensions worked great in the 1980s and 1990s, and I have very fond memories of my time using it, but it just doesn't have much to offer anymore. There are other beginner friendly languages out there that are powerful enough and have better tooling and far larger communities. And it was all about the tooling and community all along.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  To this day, many of the C++ Builder libraries are actually written in Object Pascal Delphi's dialect from Borland.
- bw86 3y ago
  Are you ever wondering what would have been if you had not written a C++ compiler?