No RPL?

[jgreenb2]

Joe,

Other than the use of the keywords "Begin" and "End" and the use of the := syntax for assignment I can find no similarity between HP PPL and Pascal. In fact, the Begin/End keywords are used in fundamentally different ways in the two languages. In Pascal, Begin/End delimit any execution block and can occur anywhere that statements are grouped. In HP PPL, they are only paired to delimit a procedure. End is overloaded to match IF, DO, FOR, etc. Pascal is strongly typed, HP PPL has no explicit typing. Pascal supports structured types, HP PPL does not (as far as I can tell). Pascal supports pointers and indirection. Does HP PPL?

That's a not a defense of Pascal, btw. Pascal fell out of favor 20+ years ago for good reason.

My point was simply that HP PPL is a variant of Basic and in 2013 there are many, many alternatives that are more suitable for both pedagogy and programming.