31–40 of 109 posts
I'll donate when it all gets setup. I really like Pascal. Jeff Duntemann is writing new intro books and releasing then under a Creative Commons license iirc. It's a great language and a killer environment.
http://www.copperwood.com/pub/FreePascalSquareOne--08-06-201...
Excitedly went to click on documentation to learn more and...there is no documentation! Instead, there is a sort of slush pile wiki that, at best, might be considered an unorganized outline for documentation, but that's all. In 2016, that wiki doesn't cut it.
To the Lazarus developers: Lazarus looks awesome. Technically, it appears very mature, but without solid, deep, well-organized documentation how do you expect anyone to learn how use it?
modern pascal is actually pretty good. it's very unfortunate that it isn't considered sexy. i learned programming on turbo pascal and used to think that pascal isn't a serious language. years later, after seeing that it's not dead and dropping prejudices against it i can see that it lost pretty much only because of its perceived uncoolness.
So, I downloaded the latest version to OSX. Effortless install. Opened Lazarus and it looks great. Threw a few gui components onto the blank form and hit compile. The program compiled almost instantly, popping up a native gui that looks great. Excitedly went to click on documentation to learn more and...there is no documentation! Instead, there is a sort of slush pile wiki that, at best, might be considered an unorga…
There's also context sensitive help. Put the text cursor over a type name, like 'TForm' in the default code that's there when you start Lazarus. Press F1 to see the documentation for that type.
modern pascal is actually pretty good. it's very unfortunate that it isn't considered sexy. i learned programming on turbo pascal and used to think that pascal isn't a serious language. years later, after seeing that it's not dead and dropping prejudices against it i can see that it lost pretty much only because of its perceived uncoolness.
I don't think it's just perceived uncoolness. I learned Pascal in high school AP CompSci and I've always found it's syntax to be ugly and inelegant. But I learned C first so maybe that's why.
I actually quite liked it. I thought Pascal provided the right level of hand-holding necessary for a newbie programmer. I was probably able to pick up C more quickly the next year because of the solid foundation from Pascal.
Much of what exists in contemporary dev tools can trace some DNA back to Turbo Pascal and Delphi 1.0
Anders Hejlsberg is a footnote in the story of a few tools - but was as instrumental as DHH in changing perception of how software could be developed, how the tools look/feel and how objects are interacted with at design time
I see a lot of current work on the DOM, I see a lot of companies wanting portable desktop apps and looking at the DOM as the platform for that, then I look at what Anders did in early 90s and think there is so much that can be applied to current problems
I'll donate when it all gets setup. I really like Pascal. Jeff Duntemann is writing new intro books and releasing then under a Creative Commons license iirc. It's a great language and a killer environment.
I hadn't heard of this book before, so I found it: "FreePascal from Square One". http://www.copperwood.com/pub/FreePascalSquareOne--08-06-201...
Had a quick look at the book. He says:
"Yessir, the book you’re reading has been around the block a few times since I began writing it in November of 1983—which I boggle to think was over thirty years ago. It’s been through four print editions and on paper sold over 125,000 copies. It’s been translated into five languages."
I had said recently, here (in another HN thread):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11889412
that I heard from a McGraw-Hill editor, that Scott Meyers' book Effective C++ had sold in the region of 50,000 copies. And the editor, Simon Yates, said that was a fairly high number of sales for a computer book.
And now I read (above) that Duntemann's books sold 125,000 copies.
Phew.
I do remember reading that Turbo Pascal was hugely popular in those days, being the first under $100-dollar language compiler (it was $50, IIRC, others were probably closer to $500 at the time). My guess is that it was a combination of factors that led to such good sales of the book - Duntemann's own programming and writing expertise, for sure, but also the huge popularity of Turbo Pascal, and the fact that it was a boom time for desktop software apps and companies. Let's hope that his new books also become hits.
Edit: spelling.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the problem. You can't sell programming tools any more. Everyone expects them to be free. Walter Bright, the designer of D and one of the first good C++, is on here, and has mentioned that before. So programming tools come from some source that has an agenda. Oracle. Microsoft. Google. Even Mozilla.
I don't mind paying for my tools. I have a ST2 license, and will be buying an ST3 upgrade license when it's time. It's just that $1.5k is hard to justify for a single language environment/compiler. VS2015 Pro is $499, while a yearly Pro/MSDN subscriptions is $1,199/year.
For some languages, lower prices won't significantly increases sales volume. And 1.5K is not a barrier if it's your bread and butter language. It's in the same ballpark as a developer machine.
I'll donate when it all gets setup. I really like Pascal. Jeff Duntemann is writing new intro books and releasing then under a Creative Commons license iirc. It's a great language and a killer environment.
>Jeff Duntemann is writing new intro books and releasing then under a Creative Commons license iirc. I remember his name as a computer book author from older PC days and mags/books, but have forgotten what he used to write about. Did he write about C or Pascal, say Turbo Pascal, earlier too? Just saw his site ( http://www.duntemann.com/ ) and it seems to show only assembly language books (on a quick look). Not that i…
So, I downloaded the latest version to OSX. Effortless install. Opened Lazarus and it looks great. Threw a few gui components onto the blank form and hit compile. The program compiled almost instantly, popping up a native gui that looks great. Excitedly went to click on documentation to learn more and...there is no documentation! Instead, there is a sort of slush pile wiki that, at best, might be considered an unorga…
Inside Lazarus, go to the 'help' menu and select 'help'. There's quite a lot of documentation! There's also context sensitive help. Put the text cursor over a type name, like 'TForm' in the default code that's there when you start Lazarus. Press F1 to see the documentation for that type.