Message-ID: <384C710B.4A0D0F18@snetch.cpg.com.au>
Date: Tue, 07 Dec 1999 13:29:31 +1100
From: Michael Abbott aka frEk <20014670 AT snetch DOT cpg DOT com DOT au>
Organization: Student of Computer Power Institute
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To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: Why not DJGPP?
References: <002d4c9c DOT 522783d0 AT usw-ex0109-069 DOT remarq DOT com> <99120616050801 DOT 24967 AT sparky DOT lineo DOT com>
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Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com

Heya all

Jared Stevens wrote:

> On Sat, 04 Dec 1999, you wrote:
> > WOW!!! You learn C at school. Just comes to show how BEHIND
> > south africa really is. We still do that ol' boring PASCAL
> > stuff. It really erretates me because I'm so accustomed to
> > working with C (I use DJGPP by the way) and always make
> > errors at school.
>
> Glad I don't live in south africa. :)

I'm an ex-SAan (been in oz for a year now:) and had the same problem :) The biggest
one was the project we had to do every year. The class would divide itself up into
groups and every group could make anything they wanted as long as it was in Turbo
Pascal. My friends and I were making great games (well by school standards anyway :)
but couldn't use them because they were in DJGPP not TP :( We had to make something
inferior (which was better than any of the other projects anyway)...

It was more fun charging people to do their projects because they had no idea how to
program at all :)

The schools are having problems with all the subjects not just the computer science so
that's probably the last thing they will fix :(

> > eg  C/C++         PASCAL
> > IF ( a==b )   IF a=b
> >
> > sux doesn't it.
>
> Yep. It does. I learned C before I entered High School, but they wouldn't let
> me take a C/C++ class because it was the most advanced class in the school, and
> it wasn't totally a class yet... it didn't have a set curriculum and they just
> threw it in with the Pascal class. (so there was a C++ class and pascal class
> in the same room with one teacher.) It didn't become a real class until last year,
> when the computer science AP test was written in C/C++. (And we have the best
> computer science department in the district.)

I also learnt C before highschool otherwise there is no way I would've made it through
the boring c.sci lessons :)

Tho' I didn't really learn Pascal (couldn't be bothered) until the last year where I
played around a little to get a feel for the language and then used the help menus!
Shows how easy our computer science exams were :)

> > to reply: DJGPP is an excelent (did someone mention FREE)
> > compiler and I had no real trouble (apart from my stupid
> > errors) with it.
>
> I agree... I prefer it to Borland and Watcom. It has been faster and has had
> way better support, (via this list and a few other resources).

That's what great about free / GNU products! Instead of some lame company doing the
requests they care about, you get a whole bunch of people fixing all the problems they
have with the product. Could you image if Linux was owned by a company like M$ !!! :)

- Michael