XPost: alt.folklore.computers   
   From: robin_listas@es.invalid   
      
   On 2026-01-01 15:28, Peter Flass wrote:   
   > On 1/1/26 05:49, The Natural Philosopher wrote:   
   >> On 01/01/2026 03:07, c186282 wrote:   
   >>> On 12/31/25 17:35, The Natural Philosopher wrote:   
   >>>> On 31/12/2025 19:21, c186282 wrote:   
      
      
   >>>    Agree.   
   >>>   
   >>>    As I've said before, I'm still quite fond of Pascal and   
   >>>    write apps of various size in it (oft first proto-ed   
   >>>    in Python). The structure is 'elegant', but you CAN   
   >>>    carry it TOO far, to where it gets in the way instead   
   >>>    of helping things.   
   >>>   
   >> My one and only  experience of trying to make Pascal do what was   
   >> trivial in 'C' led me to resolve never ever to touch it again.   
   >>   
   >> If you are trying to write - as it turned out I was - a disk driver in   
   >> pascal, where a given sector may be a byte stream, a series of 16 bit   
   >> integers,  or a structure defined by thee first few bytes in the   
   >> sector, you end up with a massive union that is so cumbersome it is   
   >> almost impossible to read - let alone use.   
   >   
   > Doesn't Pascal have variant records?   
   >   
      
   Free Pascal at least does.   
      
   https://www.freepascal.org/docs-html/ref/refsu15.html   
      
      
   I have a book somewhere that came with a floppy, and it had several   
   examples of using files with variant parts. It was easy.   
      
      
      
   --   
   Cheers, Carlos.   
   ES🇪🇸, EU🇪🇺;   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)