scott moore

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WELCOME TO COMP.LANG.PASCAL.ANSI-ISO

HISTORY OF THE GROUP

This group was created by popular vote on June 12, 1995.

PURPOSE

This is the group for discussion of Pascal in its original form. This is
the language as created by Wirth in 1968, revised in 1973, and adopted by
by the ANSI and ISO standards organizations in 1983.

Although I consider any discussion of Pascal valid here, if you have a
question that is specific to a particular form of Pascal that is served
by another group, we ask that you post there instead of here:

comp.lang.pascal.borland.* - For non-delphi (turbo and others) borland
Pascal, and compatibles.

comp.lang.pascal.delphi.* - Borlands' Delphi, Kylix.

comp.lang.pascal.mac.* - Apple Pascal, metroworks, others.

There is another group, comp.lang.pascal.misc, for general Pascal
questions. comp.lang.pascal.ansi-iso is more appropriate for discussions
of the original language, and the standards for Pascal than for
general questions about non-standard features of a particular
compiler.

In the past, comp.lang.pascal.ansi-iso has featured discussions about
compliance with the standards, Pascal history in general, discussions
about the meanings of standard language rules, etc. I consider the
following types of questions to be the best use of this group:

Q. How do I do *** in standard Pascal ?

Q. Is *** a valid standard Pascal construct ?

Q. What is the interpretation of the standard rules for *** ?

Q. What is the history of *** Pascal ?

Q. Is *** Pascal standard ?

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FAQ
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The FAQ for this group can be found at:

http://www.moorecad.com/standardpascal/ansiiso.faq

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WHAT IS PASCAL ?
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Pascal is a computer language created by Niklaus Wirth, a computer
professor in Zurich, Switzerland. Professor Wirth has created many
languages, both before and after the creation of Pascal, but Pascal
is arguably the most well known of those languages (known as the
"wirthian" languages). Other languages popular on the Internet
are Modula and Oberon.

Professor Wirths goals for Pascal were to introduce a successor to
Algol 60 that was both simple, and incorporated some of the more
recent thinking (then) in language design, such as records, files
and sets.

The language was drafted in 1968, and the first compiler became
operational in 1970, followed by its official introduction in 1971.
That language was revised to its final form under Professor Wirth
in 1973.

In the late 1970s, a working group was formed to standardize Pascal,
and in 1983 the first language standard was produced by both the
ANSI (American) and ISO (international) groups. These standards were
almost identical, even sharing the same heading numbers. The ISO
added the concept of "conformant array" parameters as a "level 1"
of the standard. The ANSI standard was subsequently replaced by
a "pointer" to the ISO standard, meaning that they are now
identical.

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VERSIONS OF PASCAL
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The original (Wirth) version of Pascal ran on a CDC 6000 computer.
From there many other editions on other computers arose, with most
being ANSI or ISO compliant after 1983.

In the 1970s, an implementation of Pascal called "P-machine" Pascal
was created whose purpose was to make porting Pascal compilers to
new machines faster and easier. It consisted of a compiler for a
virtual machine and an interpreter for same (Java style).

A modified version of the P-machine implementation was created as
UCSD Pascal (University of California at San Diego), which ran on
many early microcomputers. Note that this implementation was not,
and was not intended to be, strictly compatible with original and
standard Wirth Pascal.

After UCSD Pascal came Apple Pascal and Borland Turbo Pascal. These were
true compilers. Please note that these languages are not compatible with
either original Wirth Pascal or the ANSI or ISO standards.

In the late 1990s, a project was completed to adapt the GNU
language compiler system to Pascal. GPC is a standard Pascal compliant
compiler with several extentions to accomodate Borland and other Pascal
dialects.

Another freeware project is FPC, is a compiler designed exclusively to
be compatible with Borland Turbo Pascal languages, but not itself a
standard based compiler.

Other current notable Pascals are Prospero Pascal, Compaq Pascal,
both standard compilers.

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WEB INFORMATION
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The (unofficial) web site for this group is:

http://www.moorecad.com/standardpascal

Pascal is unusual in that all of the language standards are openly
available for viewing or download, and there is an extensive FAQ.
All of the above can be found on the above site, as well as other
sites.

The standard Pascal web site is run by me on a commercial site,
however, I keep all commercial information off those pages, except
for lists of available compilers.

Another site that deserves mention is Bill Catambay's Pascal
Central, which contains the above information and more:

http://www.pascal-central.com.

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POSTING GUIDELINES
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The subject line says it all ! Read only the messages you are
interested in. Leave the rest. Although sometimes the subject may
not really say what is in the posting, this is not common.
Try to remember how much trouble you have had reading postings
when YOU post:

Put as much information as you can in the subject line !
Subjects like "help me" or "question about Pascal" are
junk mail -- they really don't deserve an answer.

Don't keep adding replies to a thread (a thread is a chain
of replies) where the subject of conversation no longer
matches the subject title. Nobody wants to read posts about
"array indexing in Pascal" only to find that the topic
actually turned long ago into "why is the customer service
line always busy". The standard ethic here is to rename
the subject line and place the old subject after it, as:

Subject: Array indexing in Pascal

becomes:

Subject: Customer service should be shot (was: Array
indexing in Pascal)

Arguments are fun ! But everyone knows when you step across
the line from "fun" to "flame". If you call someone a name
(and remember "idiot" is as bad a word as any other on the
Usenet) or engage in personal attacks, what you will find
is that people rapidly abandon the thread. People have
better things to do.

Arguing is an ART; flaming is the flush of a toilet.

Keep the conversation ON Usenet ! All to often I get personal
mail about a posting asking further questions. Other people
might need to know that information too ! Also, I might not
know the answer, or someone else might know something in
addition. Keeping the conversation public allows all this
to happen.

If you are having a personal problem with someone on the
Usenet (if you are a regular, it is going to happen), it
might seem to be a good idea to send private mail to that
person, and take your argument out of public view. It isn't.
Private mail is unfortunately used to deliver threats,
mail so offensive or obscene that the mailer would be
embarrassed to show it in public, anonymous pranks, etc.
Send personal mail to friends; drop arguments. They are
not worth pursuing.

Similarly, posting messages asking for replies to be mailed
is poor form. Others may need the information you are requesting.
in any event, you are asking people to send advice that they
might post to the benefit of all, and perhaps save themselves
from mailing again and again and again...

Read before you post ! It actually happens quite a bit that
people ask questions that have been answered only a few
posts back ! This occurs because people post without bothering
to read any of the existing posts.

In addition, most groups have a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
list. If you have never read a FAQ, do so ! The FAQs are the
most fun reading on the Usenet. Far from being lectures, most
FAQs are a "best of the posts" do***ent that really gives
interesting information, sometimes information you will not
find elsewhere (see for example the "alt.2600" FAQ .

Be aware of limits. Many newsreaders have difficulty with subject
lines over 40 characters (which get chopped up). Try to keep
your posting text lines to 72 characters or LESS. If you use more,
your posts will look stupid because they will keep overflowing the line
and creating an unnecessary extra line.

If you have an editor that automatically "wraps" your lines into 80
character format, you may be unaware that your whole message is just one
big line, which looks really stupid and annoying to people who don't use
word wrap. I have a feature like that on my reader. It works great for
dealing with other people's posts that exceed the 72 character limit,
but tends to make you forget when you are composing posts. I
turn it off.

When placing large posts, be aware that some folks have limits
on how large a post they can accept. It is customary to break
down large posts.

Be tolerant. The Internet is pretty black and white on one issue:
if you cannot develop a thick skin here, you will not be
comfortable.

Does that poster really need to be told that he misspelled a
word ? Will you lose sleep tonight because someone posted
a stretched or broken fact ? There is nothing here as sad as
seeing an obvious newcomer get flamed for asking a stupid
question. Everyone was new once (well, except for me

Use the WEB ! format. Using Web browsers is the up and coming
way to access the newsgroups. If you put web references
in the standard form, usually one of:

http://www.thisplace.com

ftp://ftp.nowhere.com

People's browsers will see this, highlight it in blue (or other
color). Then, they can click on it for instant access to the
site you are referencing !

Finally,

Because the Usenet (Usenet is the name of the Internet news posting
service in general) operates without censorship on a faceless and
sometimes nameless basis, people sometimes seem to have no problem
leaving messages that they would not dare read in person. Other times,
facts are stretched and promises made that won't come true.
People say that society naturally sinks to its lowest level without
accountability.

But keep this in mind: when everyone is being rude, taking the extra
time to be polite and keeping your word will make you truly stand
out from the mob.

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WHO AM I ?
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In 1995 I formed the petition for the group split of comp.lang.pascal
into comp.lang.pascal.ansi-iso, comp.lang.pascal.misc,
comp.lang.pascal.borland, and comp.lang.pascal.mac. The groups
comp.lang.pascal.delphi.* were formed at a later time by another
petitioner.

I am a programmer by profession, with the vast majority of my client


industry here in Silicon Valley (Aka Santa Clara, California).

The majority of work I do in Pascal is specifically oriented towards
electrical and integrated circuitry CAD (Computer Aided Design)
(hence "www.moorecad.com").

The Pascal I use is known as IP Pascal (for "Intellectual Property"
Pascal, its an integrated circuit design concept). It is a fairly
massive implementation I created back in 1980 and have added to
since. It currently runs on Windows XP and Linux, and there are
a Sun Ultra 10 and A PowerMac running OS X in my collection of
computers awaiting an implementation.
You will find the details on IP Pascal at

http://www.moorecad.com/ippas

For fun I fly and work on my Cessna 172N, N733HZ at Reid-hillview
airport in California, and machine metalwork in my garage shop.

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Persons requiring any more assistance are invited to email me
at samiam@moorecad.com.

Note that empty subject lines will be rejected as spam, please include
a reasonable subject line.

[sam]

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