Subroutines Help Software Programmers Avoid Having To 'Reinvent The Wheel'

When writing computer programs in any language, scientists must solve problems that probably have been faced already by many other programmers. It is silly to "reinvent the wheel," as the saying goes, when a variety of routines (subprograms that scientists can plug into programs they're writing) are already available for the most popular computer languages. I spend most of my time programming in Turbo Pascal 4.0 (produced by Borland International), so I am most familiar with the three classes of

Written byBarry Simon

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I spend most of my time programming in Turbo Pascal 4.0 (produced by Borland International), so I am most familiar with the three classes of routines specific to this high-level programming language. The three classes are: general collections, which simplify the process of designing screens that will appear in a program; graphics-focused collections, for quickly and easily drawing geometric shapes; and sets of scientific routines, which make it easier for scientists to add geometric and mathematical formulas to scientific programs.

All of these packages offer better control of the screen and keyboard than Turbo Pascal provides and also offer string-handling functions, which manipulate sets of characters on the screen. TProf is the only one that will do simple sorting, and Nostradamus has mouse support and routines that allow sounds—beeps, buzzes, and so on—to be included in a program.

TProf has almost 400 functions, which are program commands each invoked by ...

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