XPost: alt.folklore.computers   
   From: Peter@Iron-Spring.com   
      
   On 1/1/26 16:54, Waldek Hebisch wrote:   
   > In alt.folklore.computers The Natural Philosopher    
   wrote:   
   >> On 01/01/2026 14:28, 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:   
   >>>>>>> I've writ stuff with five or six levels of nesting   
   >>>>>>>     but don't like it, usually if/then/else stuff. Oft   
   >>>>>>>     re-did it later to be more easy to follow. IMHO   
   >>>>>>>     readability/comprehensibility is as important as   
   >>>>>>>     functionally correct code.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> 100% agree.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> Often write little functions that are only called once. Merely to   
   >>>>>> lexically separate atomic functional blocks.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> No idea whether the compiler/linker inlines them or not.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> There is nothing worse than making top level decisions followed by   
   >>>>>> some nitty detail to detect some low level error.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> e.g. assume a call to allocate memory always works or the call will   
   >>>>>> do the appropriate jump to a global error handler to abort things   
   >>>>>> cleanly.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> The point of structure was supposed to be to elucidate program flow,   
   >>>>>> not obscure it with elegant formally correct cruft.   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>>     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?   
   >>>   
   >> IIRC it (Turbo Pascal. The amateurs language) had unions of some sort,   
   >> but I would have needed about 100 to cover all cases and it was even   
   >> then messy.   
   >   
   > Turbo Pascal could do essentially all thar C could do (and do things   
   > which were not strightforward in C, but this is irrelevant here).  And   
   > do this in a very similar way, once you knew how Turbo Pascal constructs   
   > worked.  If you really needed 100 variant record in Turbo Pascal,   
   > then you needed 100 unions in C.  If you could do this more   
   > simply in C, you could do this more simply in Turbo Pascal too.   
   > Given what you wrote, it looks that you simply lacked experience   
   > writing Turbo Pascal.  In other words, you were unqualified to   
   > do the job that you were supposed to do (write the driver in   
   > Turbo Pascal), so you decided to do thing that you know how to   
   > do, that is to write it in C.   
   >   
   > IMO biggest drawback of Turbo Pascal was poor speed of generated   
   > code (and size too).  For me deal breaker was fact that Turbo   
   > Pascal was 16-bit and tied to DOS.  DJGCC gave me 32-bit   
   > integers and slightly later I switched to Linux, so Turbo   
   > Pascal was not longer relevant for me.  But if you were   
   > programming 16-bit DOS and did not mind poor speed of generated   
   > code, than IMO Turbo Pascal was quite decent programming   
   > language, quite competitive in expressivity to C.   
      
   Now there's Free Pascal. I'm not a Pascal programmer, but I admit I was   
   impressed when I looked at what's in the package.   
      
   >   
   >> The existing code was shit anyway so I rewrote the lot   
   >   
   > That could be true.  But given that you apparently do not know   
   > what Turbo Pascal can do, it is not clear if you are qualified   
   > to judge the code.   
   >   
   > BTW: It is normal and common for programmers to want to   
   > rewrite/write from scratch instead of understanding and   
   > improving existing code.  But in most cases working on   
   > existing code leads to better effect.   
   >   
      
   Exactly my experience.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)