| Guest of Honor is the
place where you can compare another programming language
to M. This section will attempt to address the weaknesses
of M in today's computing scenario and possibly come
out with a solution. Entries may be edited. Send in your e-mail to chribonn@softhome.net with the subject line set to MWM GOH. |
Hi,
I work for InterSystems in
Belgium, but have, for a long time, also programmed in Pascal a
lot. I started with Pascal on CDC, then with Turbo Pascal on Dos,
Borland Pascal with Objects, and now program in Delphi. I have
only used Pascal and M. They are quite different, and have their
pro's and con's:
Pascal has become more and more versatile over the years, but
never became as complicated as C++. The same can be said about M,
the big difference, of course, is the use of data. If I have to
write a program with a lot of data handling, I choose M as no
language is as efficient in this respect.
Pascal needs a lot of hard-coding to use data files, you can
create libraries of course, but you are still in a strict
environment with strict data types, record length in files...
When using Delphi, you can now use another database to store your
data, and this is covering the only limitation I know in Pascal.
Now, you can combine Pascal and M, and for me this is the ideal
combination : the easy storage in M, and the versatility of OO in
Delphi.
If you need more thoughts about Pascal, feel free to ask,
Friendly Regards,
Danny Wijnschenk
Hi,
M is superior to Pascal only in dynamic and flexible file handling plus multiuser access. This is reflected in its original design goals (concurrent medical data storage entries). Pascal, on the other hand, has been born with teaching a programming language as it's main target. As we move to the year 2000, M has not really shifted out of the two criteria that made it unique and worth using years ago. Pascal has, mainly because students use it, evolved very rapidly and comparing one with another is like comparing a slow moving mammoth with a fast and efficient leopard. For example, it is possible to obtain (commercial and freeware) libraries that give Pascal enhanced file handling capabilities and operation in a multiuser environment. How many libraries can one find (commercial or freeware) that give M some of the capabilities of Pascal?
Another unattractiveness of M is that it completely lacks most of the modern day programming tools. Take for example the use of unconditional jumps. It is possible to write quite a complex Pascal program without such jumps quite easily, but it would be very difficult to do the same using M.
When GUIs started becoming popular, Pascal was on the forefront. Even today, with these environments ripe and mature, M vendors still don't quite understand to what is happening and are only now dipping their feet in this market.
Regards
