Pascal

4 definitions found

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  pascal
       n 1: a unit of pressure equal to one newton per square meter
            [syn: {Pa}]
       2: French mathematician and philosopher and Jansenist; invented
          an adding machine; contributed (with Fermat) to the theory
          of probability (1623-1662) [syn: {Blaise Pascal}]


       3: a programing language designed to teach programming through
          a top-down modular approach

From Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]:

  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.
  
  

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  Pascal
       
           (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 schema}s.
       
          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)
       
       

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  Pascal-
       
          Pascal subset used in Brinch Hansen on Pascal Compilers, P.
          Brinch Hansen, P-H 1985.
       
          [{Jargon File}]