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Date: Wed, 2 Jun 2021 18:29:09 -0700 (PDT)
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Subject: Re: why the pascal family of languages (Pascal, Ada,
 Modula-2,2,Oberon, Delphi, Algol,...) failed compared to the C family?
From: Gabriele Galeotti <gabriele.galeotti.xyz@gmail.com>
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On Thursday, June 3, 2021 at 1:11:13 AM UTC+2, Randy Brukardt wrote:
> "Gabriele Galeotti" <gabriele.g...@gmail.com> wrote in message 
> news:62a51520-f7bc-4bbf...@googlegroups.com... 
> ...
> > In the 80s, there was P-code on the Apple II. It was beautiful and fast. 
> > But it was too early.
> P-code existed on a lot of machines; there was even a hardware CPU version 
> of it. At least one of the early Ada compilers was built for as well.
> > 25 years later, Java bytecode came out, exactly the same thing, a cheeky 
> > clone. 
> > 
> > It was a success (at least, commercially).
> Given all of the above, p-code was a relative success as well. It just died 
> out for whatever reason before Java came around doing approximately the same 
> thing. (Quite possibly the possibility of practical just-in-time compilation 
> made Java stick around longer than p-code.) 
> 
> But the reality of it is that the hype machine got behind Java for whatever 
> reason, but never really did behind Ada or pc-code. 
> 
> (Note that the intermediate code used by Janus/Ada was based on the ideas of 
> p-code [with Ada-specific stuff like exception handling and tasking]; code 
> at the level has a number of advantages. We never built an interpreter for 
> it although it would be possible.) 
> 
> Randy.

I understand. No doubt that also the pcode was successful, but it is a pity
that it couldn't make the point in the 90s, at least on microcomputer-class
machines.

Still talking about the Apple II, I think one of the reason is that it was way
too complicated for the average user, with no less than 5 thick manuals
and an underlying OS like the UCSD that was a radical departure in
those times.