🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <INFO-M2%89080820123510@UCF1VM>, JIM@UCF1VM.BITNET (Jim Ennis) says:
>
>Hello,
>
>  I do not know if this has been around the list before but I was wondering
>if anyone can recommend a better Modula-2 compiler than Logitech V 3.  I am

At the risk of starting a my compiler is better than your compiler war ...

I also started with the Logitech compiler (versions 2.0, 3.0 and finally 3.03)
and I also felt like I was wrestling with the compiler as much as the projects
I was working on.  (To be fair, I was also just learning the language.)  About
8 months ago, I switched to JPI's TopSpeed Modula-2, and I've never regretted
it.  A few of the ways I think TopSpeed excells are
   *  the environment, everything in the system can be run from the editor
      or from the command line equally easily.
   *  the speed, this compiler just sings!  It is so nice to be able to
      edit, compile, fix an error, recompile, ... all in the space of time
      the Logitech compiler is still on its first pass.
   *  the debugger, though there are things this debugger will not do (some
      that I sorely miss), everything it does do it does painlessly and well.
      I don't remember if Logitech had an interactive debugger with source-
      level tracing, but I never used it if it did.
   *  the library, this feature should probably have been put first.  After
      cleaning a couple Megs of Logitech stuff off my hard disk, the TopSpeed
      library looked positively barren!  Boy, was I wrong!  JPI gives you the
      source code to a positively elegant library.  If you study their source
      you will find just about every feature of Modula-2 used to its fullest,
      including full usage of procedure variables, careful modularization, and
      information hiding.

Having said all that, there will be some people who won't like TopSpeed.
This is a single-pass compiler (hence the speed?) that requires FORWARD
refrencing like Pascal.  There are a few nonstandard enhancements (like a
GOTO stament ;-) but we're all adults here after all, right?  If you are
concerned with writing Wirth 3/e Modula-2, you can write it with TopSpeed.

The compiler comes in DOS and OS/2 versions and for the money, the full
TechKit is worth it (I think we got an educational discount, too).  I have
not seen the Stonybrook, FST, or FTL (?) compilers, but like I said, I love
TopSpeed, so I'm not looking elsewhere.

Good luck,
Tim Larson  ODX@PSUVM.BITNET
Disclaimer:  I don't work for 'em, I'm just raising my glass to 'em.