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The success of the extensions added to UCSD, Apple, Lisa and Turbo Pascal demonstrate that Kernighan's findings, which only focused on Wirth's original Pascal,
by Rochus 2y ago
The success of the extensions added to UCSD, Apple, Lisa and Turbo Pascal demonstrate that Kernighan's findings, which only focused on Wirth's original Pascal, were not as wrong as you assume. Lisa, Turbo, Object and VAX Pascal essentially supported the same kind of pointer manipulation as C. And if we take a close look at the Oberon System, even Wirth depended on this feature (although it was actually a backdoor of the language and bypassed the type checker), or he directly escaped to assembler.
- pjmlp 2y agoSame can expressed to the success of the extensions added to K&R C, starting by inline Assembly, but apparently extensions in C were good to have, bad in Pascal. Two weights, two measurements.
- Rochus 2y agoApparently K&R C (which was the version at the time of Kernighan's paper) wasn't good enough itself, and it's fair to say that ANSI C also borrowed features from Pascal (e.g. function prototypes). So the influence was mutual. And I think it's pretty evident that the extensions made by UCSD and later Pascals to Wirth's original version were essential for the success. I don't think that the typical Turbo Pascal user cared much about Wirth's original version.