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Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

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Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#11

Post by pjmlp »

antranigv wrote: post #8

For people who are going to ask "Do people still use pascal?", long story short-> yes they do, and Free Pascal Compiler is not only the traditional Pascal that we used to lean in school, it's also an Object Pascal compiler, and has many many libraries for modern programming :)) I started learning programming with Pascal when I was a child, it helped me to understand many things, lately I had a look at Python, which I…

If you want to dive into the world of Oberon you should check the PDFs available at Niklaus Wirth web site and AOS.

http://www.ethoberon.ethz.ch/books.html

http://www.ocp.inf.ethz.ch/wiki/Documentation/Front

You can also have a look how the OS used at ETHZ were like:

http://progtools.org/article.php?name=oberon&section=compile...

We already had it quite good on the PC with Turbo Pascal and later Delphi, which is why I find a bit sad that it took us almost 20 years to get .NET Native, instead of it being the default toolchain from day one.

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#12

Post by pjmlp »

PvsNP_ZA wrote: post #4
moonshinefe wrote: post #2

Do people code in Pascal still?! I remember it from years ago in high school and it seemed like it was already ancient then. Nothing against the language itself, it was straightforward and easy to learn on. Just surprised to see a new compiler for it coming out.

In South Africa, Pascal and Delphi are still taught in schools... In fact, the University of South Africa actually has about 2 Delphi semester modules also, along with C++. Some schools have switched over to Java, and most other universities have jumped onto the Java/.NET bandwagon. So in a nutshell, I think it's still pretty prevalent in 3rd world countries. It's not a bad starting language to introduce students to…

I remember there used to exist a South African magazine about game development in Turbo/Free Pascal and Delphi.

It is quite nice that those universities still teach it, as that way at least those students will learn that C and C++ aren't the only way of doing systems programming.

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#13

Post by mhd »

antranigv wrote: post #8

For people who are going to ask "Do people still use pascal?", long story short-> yes they do, and Free Pascal Compiler is not only the traditional Pascal that we used to lean in school, it's also an Object Pascal compiler, and has many many libraries for modern programming :)) I started learning programming with Pascal when I was a child, it helped me to understand many things, lately I had a look at Python, which I…

Oberon was actually used in a couple of German universities, not just because of the language, but because of the whole environment (which feels a bit like SmallTalk for bit-twiddlers and -shavers).

Having said that, Oberon is a pretty strict and bare language compared to others, e.g. in its current standard, the old structured programming rule of one return statement per function is strictly enforced. Whether that's an advantage for teaching or not, I can't really say.

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#14

Post by anta40 »

Glad to hear FPC is still well alive and kicking.

BTW, AFAIK Wirth's work is not limited to Pascal (there are Oberon and Modula, for example). Wonder why those languages don't gain as much exposure as Pascal does?

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#15

Post by moonshinefe »

moonshinefe wrote: post #2

Do people code in Pascal still?! I remember it from years ago in high school and it seemed like it was already ancient then. Nothing against the language itself, it was straightforward and easy to learn on. Just surprised to see a new compiler for it coming out.

Some good replies to my question here, thanks.

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#17

Post by clouddrover »

andreiv wrote: post #7
moonshinefe wrote: post #2

Do people code in Pascal still?! I remember it from years ago in high school and it seemed like it was already ancient then. Nothing against the language itself, it was straightforward and easy to learn on. Just surprised to see a new compiler for it coming out.

The firm where I currently work has a rather huge Delphi legacy software. You'd be surprised how much is still being "extracted" out of if. The more modern (and better built, but I'm biased, as I'm part of the team developing it) web app, which is meant to replace the Delphi one, has not had the same success. It's picking up momentum though...

If it's better built then why hasn't had the same success? What are your metrics for "better"?

What does "more modern" mean exactly? I don't see that there's much value in pursuing design or implementation purity if the software isn't getting the same end user take-up.

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#18

Post by Hexcles »

In China, Pascal is a very popular language for high school beginners of Olympiad in Informatics (see http://www.ioinformatics.org/ for the international competition). And it's probably the most used language in the provincial level competition, National Olympiad in Informatics in Province. Yet those who reach the national level will likely switch to C++ for many reasons (STL, performance, etc.).

I myself started programming in this way. And even now I'm glad that Pascal was my first language. It's an excellent educational language, which was its original purpose. It doesn't have "absurd" syntax; keywords are long but straightforward; and its type system is static and strong, which I believe is something that a serious programmer has to master.

By the way, although probably not as powerful as Delphi (especially in terms of widgets), Lazarus will give you a taste of the Rapid Application Development, which Delphi was famous for.

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#19

Post by pilif »

moonshinefe wrote: post #2

Do people code in Pascal still?! I remember it from years ago in high school and it seemed like it was already ancient then. Nothing against the language itself, it was straightforward and easy to learn on. Just surprised to see a new compiler for it coming out.

In the rare occasions where I still have to do something for Windows, I'm still using my old and trusty version of Delphi 2010.

If I had to say anything about Pascal, I would say that it's very readable. Even with multi-years gaps between me having to work on this, it's very easy to re-familiarise myself with the code and it's very easy to understand what it's doing.

This might be related to style and, as Delphi was my first real language I've learned waybackwhen in the mid-90ies, yes, I have made a mess with my Pascal too, but it feels like it's much harder to produce a mess than it is in any other language I've worked with so far.

Of course this is all just a matter of taste - just giving my 5 cents.

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#20

Post by interfixus »

moonshinefe wrote: post #2

Do people code in Pascal still?! I remember it from years ago in high school and it seemed like it was already ancient then. Nothing against the language itself, it was straightforward and easy to learn on. Just surprised to see a new compiler for it coming out.

"A new compiler" is a bit of a stretch. The Free Pascal project has been around for about 20 years.
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