XPost: alt.folklore.computers   
   From: commodorejohn@gmail.com   
      
   On Mon, 5 Jan 2026 20:37:59 -0700   
   Peter Flass  wrote:   
      
   > > However it WAS easy to extend the language - add in those Real   
   > > World necessities. By the time Turbo Pascal hit the scene there   
   > > really wasn't anything you could not do with Pascal.   
   > >   
   > > And I still write in Pascal fairly often - like it better than 'C'.   
   >   
   > I'm not sure to what extent there was an attempt early on to   
   > standardize the extensions, but this would have helped adoption of   
   > the language immensely.   
      
   Yeah, that's the thing - anyone can extend a language by disregarding   
   the original spec, changing what they don't like and adding what they   
   want, and (re-)writing a compiler that adheres to their version, but   
   then you have a different version with which the original language/   
   implementation is not compatible (and which may not even be a strict   
   superset.) Get enough of those floating around, and it's the ol' Babel   
   problem. That's not insurmountable (just look at how many microcomputer   
   BASICs there were, and yet there was enough mutual intelligibility for   
   people to publish books of computer games in source form, with tips in   
   the back for tweaking things to run on particularly esoteric versions,)   
   but it sure does make extra work for programmers :/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)