Re: N. Wirth

Rich Ryan wrote:
> I was the guy that started the thread re: Pascal. The nostalgia was great.
> But for some reason I can't rely to that thread. I'll just do it here.
>
> To Cressey et all,
> yes, I wish they still taught it.
>
> To Celko,
>
> I completely forgot about Wirth! Thanks. To teach myself Pascal I converted
> the "Game of Life". Anyone remember that?

I coded Game of Life several times; like you, to become familiar with new-for-me languages. One thing I learned: just because it compiles doesn't make it right. Defects in the application of the rules that determine birth, continued life, and death would result in colonies that had recognizable shapes -- or patterns -- or something. (Sometimes colonies seemed to "move diagonally" or the algorithm resulted in different stable and alternating cells of life, &c.)

I've never been able to describe what I was seeing in the output and relate it to the rules, but it was there. Received on Tue May 02 2006 - 06:31:18 CDT