XPost: alt.folklore.computers   
   From: commodorejohn@gmail.com   
      
   On Sat, 3 Jan 2026 08:31:33 +0000   
   The Natural Philosopher  wrote:   
      
   > "The statement "Pascal has no I/O" originates from   
   > Brian Kernighan’s 1981 essay, "Why Pascal is Not My Favorite   
   > Programming Language".   
   >    
   > Kernighan argued that the original 1970 definition of Pascal was   
   > severely limited for systems programming because:   
      
   Yeah, that was it - not *no* I/O in the sense that was true of Algol,   
   but weird and constrained in ways that betray its origins as a teaching   
   language. Mainly, files are assumed to be of a uniform structure; you   
   can have a FILE OF CHAR or a FILE OF INTEGER, but not a file containing   
   both strings and integers. If you want to do *that,* you're supposed to   
   make a struct and have a FILE OF that, but this too has to be the same   
   across the whole thing. Files of mixed or variable structure? Who uses   
   *those!?*   
      
   Like many of Wirth's design choices, it sounds simple on paper but is   
   unnecessarily confining in the Real World - and, as Kernighan points   
   out, there were no "escape hatches" for extending the language from   
   within, leading to a bunch of proprietary and mutually-incompatible   
   variants. Obviously, it's been decades and the landscape has changed   
   substantially, but it really was dunderheaded at the time.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)