I did a LOT of development in Pascal before moving on to C/C++ and I have to
say that Pascal's tighter type checking made a lot of sense. It is only with
the newer flavors of C++ that we are approaching the protection provided by
Pascal.

OTOH, I found myself regularly working around the restrictions imposed by
Pascal, but that was a good thing ( (c) Martha Stewart ) because it made
explicit the places I was doing something 'funny'.

Bob Ammerman
RAm Systems
(contract development of high performance, high function, low-level
software)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Olin Lathrop" <olin_piclist@EMBEDINC.COM>
To: <PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2001 7:57 PM
Subject: Re: [PIC]: Compiler


> > If I define a variable, what bloody business is it
> > of the compiler what I plan to use it for?
>
> That's one way to look at it, thinking of the compiler as the enemy
between
> you and the machine code.
>
> But, for a moment, think of the compiler as a friend trying to help you
get
> to the same ultimate machine code.  If you tell the compiler how you plan
on
> using a variable up front, then it can point out places where you are
> breaking your own rules.  You can then say "Oops, thanks for catching
that",
> or "no, I really do want to do this".  Now think of the poor maintenance
> programmer (or you two years later).  His life will be a lot easier if he
> can see you've set up rules for how you are using your variables, and he
> knows the compiler verifies those rules are followed except in the cases
> where there's some nice obvious syntax for the "no, I really do want to do
> this" cases.
>
> I've also noticed that when I feel like I'm fighting the type checking
> rules, that I usually didn't design the software right.  In fact, I use
that
> sort of thing now as a flag to step back and look at the overall design
> again.  Most of the time, I realize that I had been trying to hammer a
> square peg into a round hole.
>
> In short, I think that the little extra effort of some declarations and
> following some rules pays back many fold  -  but only if you have the
right
> mindset to look at it that way.  As long as you look at type checking as a
> nuisance, you aren't likely to let it help you.
>
>
> ********************************************************************
> Olin Lathrop, embedded systems consultant in Littleton Massachusetts
> (978) 742-9014, olin@embedinc.com, http://www.embedinc.com
>
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