From: ppollet@cismibm.univ-lyon1.fr (Patrick POLLET)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: MAC Pascal for first year teaching
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 09:01:13 GMT
Organization: INSA  CENTRE INFORMATIQUE DU 1er CYCLE
NNTP-Posting-Host: pc110-02.insa-lyon.fr
Summary: Wanted: ideas for implementation of pascal for 1st year teaching
Keywords: pascal, programming, teaching, mac

In article <bphillip.37.728002841@massey.ac.nz> B.C.Phillips@massey.ac.nz (Brenden Phillips) writes:
>From: B.C.Phillips@massey.ac.nz (Brenden Phillips)
>Subject: MAC Pascal for first year teaching
>Summary: Wanted: ideas for implementation of pascal for 1st year teaching
>Keywords: pascal, programming, teaching, mac
>Date: 25 Jan 93 23:00:41 GMT

>Hi,

>we are currently using Mac LC's running system 6.0.7 ( System 7 next year )
>in 4MB of RAM for teaching our first year courses. Our first year 
>programming paper has been using MacPascal, which is now unsuitable. We 
>would like to know what you use to introduce your students to Pascal 
>programming.

(......)

 We had the same problem few years ago when we upgraded our macs and 
MacPascal did not worked any more.

 We gave a go to Borland's Turbopascal on mac for some times but we had to
drop it since it was quite capricious and is not anymore supported by
Borland.

 IN LAST RESORT we turned to Think Pascal. Actually we are not too pleased
with it at an introductory level since it requires quite a lot of 
"preparation" before being able to compile and run an simple program.

 That concept of "project",in which one must manually add the "program"
plus runtime.lib and interface.lib , and the all of it in a Folder ....

 This is quite powerful for a real application development but very 
confusing for beginners... Too much "computer concepts" to be learn
before one can run a trivial three-liner program. And even after 
several weeks of practice, some students still "loose" some files 
by not saving them in the proper folder !!!! 

  Another "pain in the ..." is  the following:

       -We  recommand the students to work of the built-in hard disk for
speed reasons. and before they leave the room, they must copy the 
application folder onto their diskettes. 
  When they come back the next week they MUST copy back the folder
on the hard drive to re-run the program. Otherwise, if they try to
run it off their diskette ,Think Pascal complains than 
it cannot find runtime.lib and interface.lib and one 
has to manually open several dialog boxes to show it that the two files are
still on the hard drive in the Thinkpascal folder !!!!

    -the same is TRUE when some "idiot" change the name of the hard disk.
something that is quite esay on a Mac and happens twice a week ... Since 
ThinkPascal keeps in the project file the FULL PATH NAME to the Runtime.lib 
and Interface.lib files, if the name of the hard disk has been changed, 
these path names are invalid and one has again to open few dailog boxes to 
reconfigure the project....

  -another problem is that most of the "goodies" of TurboPascal or UCSD
Pascal are not supported (Str,Val,ClrScr,GotoXY,KeyPressed,Randomize...)
 Most of them can be programmed using Apple 's Toolbox calls, but it is quite
complex and confusing to stuents. we have to give them extra units with
the goodies and that makes the creation of their programs even 
more difficult ...

  You may think that I am quite rough on that otherwise extremely powerful 
product. The problem is THAT IT IS TOO POWERFUL . BUT to my knowledge
their is nothing else on the market. MacApp is even worst ....

   We are seriously considering dropping the Mac's in 1st year and
use Turbopascal on PC's new year.. The startup process is straighforward
and the few msDos commands needed to backup files to and from the student's 
diskettes are  a very small tribute to pay compared with the tremendous
overhead of Think Pascal....
  
  I speak as the coordinator of the C.S. teaching at undergraduate 
level in my Institute (1200 students in 1st and 2nd year)  and this
opinion is shared by the 15 colleagues that teaches Pascal on Mac's.
  
   If some Apple's managers are reading this, I wish to point out that
this lack on an introductory level structured programming language 
on Mac's is a real problem to us and may prevent us to introduce 
in the future the Mac computer to beginners students. They will go 
on PCs and ,as the experience proves it, stay on PCs. Too bad ....

ppollet@cismibm.univ-lyon1.fr (Patrick POLLET)
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Dr Patrick L.Pollet
Institut National des Sciences Appliquees
Centre Informatique du 1er Cycle  Bat 110
20 Avenue A.Einstein
69621 Villeurbanne Cedex France
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Phone: 72 43 83 80 -   la premiere erreur c'est
Fax  : 72 43 85 33 -   de se lever le matin  ... GASTON
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