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FreePascal and Lazarus Foundation

lists.freepascal.org

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Re: FreePascal and Lazarus Foundation

#41

Post by zoom6628 »

Learn Pascal on an Osborne-1. First project was a device driver - a classroom project no less! Having coded in lots of languages since then, I like Pascal for its structure, its rigour, and uncomplicated binaries and installation. I dont mind if IDE setup is hard as long as anything i build is easily shared with others. Was easier and faster to get Lazarus working on my Mac than Visual Studio 2015 on my Windows (T440p) laptop! FPK/Delphi hands down winner - the only thing easier to share is probably DOS batch scripts.

Recently look at some Go code and thought it looked like simplified pascal. LOL. Agree with the other posters that pascal wasnt ever 'cool' because when it was being used for cool-stuff like writing MacOS it wasnt widely publicised, and unfortunately it was used as a learning language (and lets face it not many of us remember school as being uber-cool!).

There are precious few languages that can be used for learning and for getting real work done - but if you look at those, they have been around for a long time: Fortran, COBOL, C, Pascal, Lisp.

On another note i look at the code, and platforms, and I think that Pascal has an opportunity to be used in IoT applications. Small footprint objects are well suited to constrained environments like my own projects (Arduino, Pi, CHiP, Xbee) where one also needs a compiler that helps to keep the world safe from my bad code (like strict types and pointer bounds!).

The folks working on FPK and with Lazarus have done a superb job. Great tools, amazing cross platform support, and delivering stuff that helps get things done.

Re: FreePascal and Lazarus Foundation

#42

Post by zoom6628 »

zoom6628 wrote: post #41

Learn Pascal on an Osborne-1. First project was a device driver - a classroom project no less! Having coded in lots of languages since then, I like Pascal for its structure, its rigour, and uncomplicated binaries and installation. I dont mind if IDE setup is hard as long as anything i build is easily shared with others. Was easier and faster to get Lazarus working on my Mac than Visual Studio 2015 on my Windows (T440…

I forgot mention Python as a learning langage that is also widely used for getting stuff done. Of all the languages i mentioned it is cool. Ive been using it since 2001 - about the same time as i last used Delphi for work.

Re: FreePascal and Lazarus Foundation

#43

Post by chadcmulligan »

trentmb wrote: post #9
baq wrote: post #6

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.

Or that you have to drop $1,405.00 [0] to get a 'professional' environment. [0] https://www.embarcadero.com/app-development-tools-store/delp...

gets even worse if you want to develop for iOS/Android since you have to buy windows first

Re: FreePascal and Lazarus Foundation

#44

Post by erbo »

vram22 wrote: post #21
analognoise wrote: post #15

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…

I posted a link to the Foundation's Web site to Jeff's Facebook page. (He's been busy getting his house in Colorado Springs ready to sell, as he and his wife are moving to Phoenix for health reasons. Facebook is about all he has time to check these days.) I'll also link this HN comment thread to him.

Jeff's blog is at http://www.contrapositivediary.com/ , and he updates that more frequently than his main Web site. (Which is to say, pretty infrequently at the moment, though I expect that to change once his big move is over.)

Re: FreePascal and Lazarus Foundation

#45

Post by mamcx »

ebbv wrote: post #33
baq wrote: post #6

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.

Is interesting that people that "like" the c-like syntax consider pascal "ugly". The opposite is also true.

Re: FreePascal and Lazarus Foundation

#46

Post by erbo »

vram22 wrote: post #37
avhon1 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Cool, just downloaded it - thanks. 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://n…

He'd probably appreciate it more if you made his science fiction books hits, as he's been trying to get back into SF writing recently, and has joined the indie publishing revolution (after getting talked into it by Sarah Hoyt).

Available on Kindle Unlimited: his novel The Cunning Blood [0], a newer novel, Ten Gentle Opportunities [1], and his collection Souls in Silicon: Tales of AI Confronting The Infinite. [2] More to come, too, stay tuned!

(Disclaimer: I've designated myself as Jeff's "#1 fanboy.")

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Cunning-Blood-Jeff-Duntemann-ebook/dp...

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Ten-Gentle-Opportunities-Jeff-Duntema...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Souls-Silicon-Tales-Confronting-Infin...

Re: FreePascal and Lazarus Foundation

#47

Post by ebbv »

mamcx wrote: post #45
ebbv wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is interesting that people that "like" the c-like syntax consider pascal "ugly". The opposite is also true.

It's true. I view syntax preference kind of like car preference. Very personal and some people have deep reasons and others don't.

Re: FreePascal and Lazarus Foundation

#48

Post by eli »

trentmb wrote: post #9
baq wrote: post #6

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.

Or that you have to drop $1,405.00 [0] to get a 'professional' environment. [0] https://www.embarcadero.com/app-development-tools-store/delp...

Nonsense. I'd gladly pay $1400 for a development environment if it made my job as a developer easier or better. My recollection is that Delphi (and its various owners) lost their way, not that people suddenly rejected Delphi's price point.

Re: FreePascal and Lazarus Foundation

#49

Post by nickpsecurity »

mtkd wrote: post #36

So much unnecessary negativity on 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…

You might have liked the Juice project:

http://www.modulaware.com/mdlt69.htm

Just found a Github page while looking for it where they might have put up the old source:

https://github.com/Spirit-of-Oberon/Juice

Re: FreePascal and Lazarus Foundation

#50

Post by int_19h »

hugh4life wrote: post #27
ivoras wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, Lazarus is probably the single most-cross-platform-compatible GUI builder for native apps that exists, anywhere. Neither Java, nor Qt nor anything else come even close. And the apps are native! As for the "I don't like Pascal because Pascal is ugly" crowd: it's only different, and it's almost by chance (i.e. reasons external to the language itself) that most of today's production languages have use…

"Believe it or not, Lazarus is probably the single most-cross-platform-compatible GUI builder for native apps that exists, anywhere." Except they build on GTK 2, Qt 4, and Carbon on OSX. I haven't used it, but the whole LCL architecture seems absurd to me as there's no way that a project like theirs can keep things up to date. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/LCLArchi...

From this image, the architecture looks similar to wxWidgets, which has been pretty successful. Why do you believe Lazarus cannot keep up?
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