[fpc-pascal] Pascal is alive!!??

[Daniël Mantione]

Op Mon, 26 Feb 2007, schreef Matt Emson:

> > Read the draft here and tell me what you think of it and whether you
> > have something to add:
> 

> [explaining classes is not really harder than program/unit]

I disagree with this part. Sure, you will get questions of about 
programs/units, but the purpose of the keywords belonging to them is way 
easier to explain than public, static and class.

I want to throw another argument in the arena: libraries. The Java OOP 
libraries are a powerfull framework, but this adds complexity. Java 
standard I/O is such a maze of complexity, I'm quite sure readln is easier 
to explain than streams and tokenizers.

> [Java doesn't have pointers but references]

I call references an eufemism for pointers. However, it is true that 
pointers in Java, which is a managed language, are safer. I.e. you cannot 
use a pointer after dispose, or leave a memory leak in Java.

However, that is the eternal discussion about the merits of garbage 
collection. Given that most software is written in a language without 
garbage collection (namely C), teaching people to be able to program 
without garbage collection makes sense.

Daniël Mantione