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Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

getlazarus.org

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Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#101

Post by Hexcles »

gedrap wrote: post #23
Hexcles wrote: post #18

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 pro…

Same in Lithuania. Everyone who intends to do a degree in computer science is taught Pascal, olympiads are in Pascal/C++. Whether it's a good language to teach highschoolers (students in general, not preparing for olympiads) or not, I am not so sure. On one hand, yeah, it's pretty simple. On other hand, I'd lean towards Python simply because it's more widespread in industry, as a result you have tons of well document…

My largest concern about using Python as the first teaching language for serious programmers (or you can say those who intend to pursue a CS degree) is that it's too "magical". The dynamic type system, the flexible Pythonic tricks, "hidden" (at least not explicit and obvious) details about the memory model, etc.

As a programmer, I like many of these characteristics. However, when I was helping the lower-year students with programming, I found many starting with Python faced tremendous difficulties in understanding pointers, references, and types later on. Some of them even resisted learning these concepts and further resisted using C/C++/Java, claiming that it's world of Node.js/Python/Ruby.

I'm not sure if it's just that I'm getting old (not really...).

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#102

Post by jrjr »

alberte wrote: post #51
sevensven wrote: post #28

I've been using Lazarus 2.6 for a free time project since August as I've used Delphi 1.0 in the early nineties and I wanted to see if this was any good. I've been blow away with it, it's Delphi brought from the dead :) It has been a real pleasure to use and I've come to appreciate the productivity that it brings, as this open source IDE is on par with what I remembered from early Delphi versions and, amazingly, I fee…

...Delphi's not dead - see http://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi , now it's cross platform, modern language features - generics, lambdas etc etc. Writing a Mac app in it right now :-)

current pricing makes it dead.

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#103

Post by SwellJoe »

icelancer wrote: post #29
SwellJoe wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pascal was the teaching language of choice in the US for a very long time. My high school AP (advanced classes that provided college credit) programming classes were taught with Pascal, after the introductory class using BASIC. But, I was in high school a long time ago, and programming was taught on Apple II computers (there were some IIe computers in the lab, as well). I don't think there's widespread Pascal usage f…

Pascal was on the way out when I was in HS (I'm 32) but it was still kicking in the form of Delphi during the VB wars (then VB4). I have fond memories of it. It's mostly Java now, BTW.

I guess if kids learn Java, and still love programming after that, they've got what it takes to be programmers in the real world.

But, I don't think I'd set out to punish kids for wanting to learn programming by making them use something that has so much tedious boilerplate and verbosity. Then again, you can actually make real things with Java; everything from games (Minecraft) to the web (sort of) to apps (most Android apps) to OS programming (Android, itself) is reasonably do-able. So, the empowerment level is high. It just seems like something more immediate would be preferable, at least for the first class (to parallel the use of BASIC in my day; maybe Python would be a good choice, since it can be used for real projects, too).

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#104

Post by nickpsecurity »

baq wrote: post #36
lordfoom wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point of fact: the RSA department of education removed Java as the language being taught, and replaced it with Delphi, despite objections (from some like myself). Here's an article: http://mybroadband.co.za/news/columns/89295-is-delphi-better...

i'd say it's a good decision for everybody except perhaps hiring companies, and then i'm not sure about that either in the long run.

I agree. When learning to program, one should first learn the mental activity oc solving problems with code. Then maybe learn all the boilerplate and BS associated with a language like Java. Pascal is simple enough that students can learn fundamentals first. Same with industrial BASIC. Both are like pseudocode.

Many people are turned off to programming encountering Java, C++, etc because they think programming is inherently that difficult.

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#105

Post by anta40 »

StevePerkins wrote: post #63

Pascal falls into an unfortunate niche: - It's nowhere near new and trendy enough to have a bandwagon (e.g. Node, Go, Rust) - It's not obscure enough to have a retro-cool following (e.g. Tcl, Forth) - It doesn't blaze any theoretical trails in computer science today (e.g. Haskell) - It's not associated with any evil corporate entity, allowing you to praise it "ironically" (e.g. C#) However, I find it to be a really p…

>> - It doesn't blaze any theoretical trails in computer science today (e.g. Haskell)

Which is probably a good thing. As much I'm fascinating by functional programming (type system, lambda calculus, etc etc), I find it kinda difficult to program on :p

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#106

Post by ziotom78 »

TimJYoung wrote: post #79
ziotom78 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used it a few months ago to develop some HPC code for analyzing the timelines of a cosmological instrument (ESA Planck/LFI), and I was quite happy with the result. I even wrote a blog post about my experience ( http://ziotom78.blogspot.fr/2015/01/lfi-data-analysis-with-f... ).

Great blog post. One point, though: the reason that you got a segfault with your FillChar on the array isn't because you used a dynamic array instead of static array. Dynamic arrays are just like pointers in terms of how the compiler handles them (the element count is a negative offset from the actual start of the elements, and there are other things like reference counts there also). The reason you got the segfault…

Many thanks for this clarification! I have added a link to your explanation at the end of my post.

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#107

Post by fit2rule »

jbb555 wrote: post #25

It's strange, the more new languages I learn, and the more complexity things like C++ acquire, the more I'm starting to feel like we lost something with simple straightforward languages like pascal and even C

I'm with you on this - its why I consider that Lua is the language to learn right now. It provides all the powers of the other languages, and all the performance/advantages of C ..

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#108

Post by TimJYoung »

cJ0th wrote: post #98

Are there any good resources for someone who already knows how to code to get productive with (Free) Pascal quickly?

My recommendation would be to download/install Lazarus, even if you don't want to write a GUI application:

http://www.lazarus-ide.org/

You can pop into the IDE and start coding/compiling/running things right away.

I haven't seen the FP/Lazarus docs lately, so I can't comment on their quality, but this is a good resource for getting up to speed with Delphi, and a lot of it is exactly the same in FP/Lazarus:

http://www.delphibasics.co.uk/index.html

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#109

Post by michaelbunny »

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.

Yes. Pascal is used. That's definitely the case.

In the end there are 3 tribes. freepascal, Delphi and the Elements Compiler (C#, Swift, Oxygene Language is Pascal).

There are many more traditional Pascal environments too. Smartmobile (HTML 5 apps), XEROCODER (based on FPC) for Grid developments and an integration into Visual Studio Code ...

FPC Version 3 is a huge step and a great one. While I personally admire all of the people's work I must confess the evolution of freepascal as well as the Lazarus IDE is exceptional.

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#110

Post by michaelbunny »

sevensven wrote: post #28

I've been using Lazarus 2.6 for a free time project since August as I've used Delphi 1.0 in the early nineties and I wanted to see if this was any good. I've been blow away with it, it's Delphi brought from the dead :) It has been a real pleasure to use and I've come to appreciate the productivity that it brings, as this open source IDE is on par with what I remembered from early Delphi versions and, amazingly, I fee…

You missed out the whole hype.

For us who use stuff on a regular basis the changes seem small but peu a peu these add up.

Once an electrician still developing in spare time who know Turbo Pascal 5 from school while servicing the air conditioner saw me programming. When he heard that I would use Pascal he looked at my screen jumped from the ladder and left the office together with me after midnight.

Freepascal is indeed a very solid approach I use on Linux especially. Works great on Windows too.

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