Ask HN: Is it just an accident that Pascal can be compiled extremely fast?

Re:Ask HN: Is it just an accident that Pascal can be compile... by 082349872349872 on Monday January 23, 2023 @04:02PM (#34494994)

Designed: industrial programs might be compiled once and run multiple times. Student programs, on the other hand, will likely be run fewer times than they are ever (attempted to be) compiled.

Pascal's original use was the latter case.

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Re:Ask HN: Is it just an accident that Pascal can be compile... by Someone on Monday January 23, 2023 @04:43PM (#34495505)

I don’t think that’s completely true. Pascal was also designed as a general purpose language to compete with Algol and Fortran.

See for example Wirth’s https://www.research-collection.ethz.ch/bitstream/handle/20....:

“Compared to Algol 60, its range of applicability is considerably increased due to a variety of data structuring facilities. In view of its intended usage both as a convenient basis to teach programming and as an efficient tool to write large programs…”

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Re:Ask HN: Is it just an accident that Pascal can be compile... by AnimalMuppet on Monday January 23, 2023 @05:28PM (#34496014)

My first reaction was that Pascal's extremely spartan I/O capabilities made that a pipe dream. But then I remembered what Fortran's I/O was like...

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Re:Ask HN: Is it just an accident that Pascal can be compile... by Someone on Monday January 23, 2023 @06:38PM (#34496736)

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