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Turkey buys Delphi licenses for an estimated one million students

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Re: Turkey buys Delphi licenses for an estimated one million students

#241

Post by thu2111 »

adwn wrote: post #144
zozbot234 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

QuickBASIC works the same way. Rust doesn't really build its help documentation for "built-in" access in the programming environment (everything is web-based, even "local" docs launch in a web browser) but examples are a first-class feature; they're reused as test cases.

> Rust [...] everything is web-based Correction: Rust's help and documentation is HTML -based, and getting a local, automatically updated copy is trivial. > even "local" docs launch in a web browser Uh, so what? Can you name a better format for programming language documentation that's also ubiquitously supported?

Well, JavaDoc is a mix of HTML and custom tag language based, whereas Kotlin moved to Markdown + some similar tags. Because HTML is a pain in the rear to write compared to Markdown and can't express everything you want concisely.

Maybe you mean Rust's documentation is rendered to HTML. In which case, sure, but so what? Good docs can be rendered to non-HTML formats too, typically for IDEs to display quickly without needing to load a full browser.

Re: Turkey buys Delphi licenses for an estimated one million students

#242

Post by kuzimoto »

kungito wrote: post #74
arghwhat wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that StackOverflow itself is not a problem—it is instead the laziness of many in the "newer" generations of programmers. StackOverflow has many great explanations, which are no different than reading a chapter in a book (it's just a book that is extremely relevant to you problem). The problem is that lazy people demand code dumps, and lazy people provide code dumps instead of explanations. This then bec…

I believe if nothing else then it's the fact that there are more programmers meaning less hardcore people who just want to get shit done and move on

I think this is accurate. I'm pretty technical but with no formal education on programming. Currently I can only tinker with programming in my free time. There are a lot of huge gaps in my knowledge and it sucks sometimes, but at least Stack Overflow allows me to solve certain problems more easily, so I can get on with doing fun stuff.

Re: Turkey buys Delphi licenses for an estimated one million students

#243

Post by billfruit »

marcocantu wrote: post #222
billfruit wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May be one problem might be that it might condition learners to the peculiarities of programming for DOS and its archaic memory model, which aren't that of relevance to modern systems.

What are you talking about? Delphi let's you build Android apps, not just DOS apps. And iOS, and Win64, etc...

I was referring to Borland turbo c/c++.

Re: Turkey buys Delphi licenses for an estimated one million students

#244

Post by thu2111 »

FpUser wrote: post #135
Wiretrip wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually a very good alternative would be Java and JavaFX, maybe using Eclipse as the IDE.

I used either. Not really good alternative IMO

Well why not? I've used Delphi for years and also Java/JavaFX/Swing. There's not much reason to use Delphi anymore when Java IDEs can do the same things, and much more, and with docs that are just as good or better, all for free.

Re: Turkey buys Delphi licenses for an estimated one million students

#245

Post by thu2111 »

badsectoracula wrote: post #215
jonathanstrange wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the motivation is teaching-related at all. For teaching there are way better languages than Object Pascal, which is kind of outdated and has a lot of anachronisms. However, Delphi is an outstanding tool for production and together with Freepascal/Lazarus one of the best options for cross-platform application development - certainly on a par with C++/Qt. So this is a pretty smart move of Turkey to get so…

> has a lot of anachronisms Such as?

It's not garbage collected, but also, not completely manually memory managed either. I can't quite recall how it works but it's mostly some sort of ref counting + some manual.

When teaching, non-GCd languages just get in the way. You don't want students apps to be segfaulting constantly because they're running into memory errors whilst you're trying to teach them something else. Learn programming and get confident with it first, THEN learn the techniques needed to safely manage memory (maybe).

I actually learned programming as a kid with first Turbo Pascal then Delphi. My programs crashed with the dreaded access violation error all the time. Debugging that sucked. I assume it's better these days.

Re: Turkey buys Delphi licenses for an estimated one million students

#246

Post by badsectoracula »

thu2111 wrote: post #245
badsectoracula wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> has a lot of anachronisms Such as?

It's not garbage collected, but also, not completely manually memory managed either. I can't quite recall how it works but it's mostly some sort of ref counting + some manual. When teaching, non-GCd languages just get in the way. You don't want students apps to be segfaulting constantly because they're running into memory errors whilst you're trying to teach them something else. Learn programming and get confident wi…

It is manually memory managed, but that is only for objects you create explicitly or memory you allocate explicitly. Other types that deal with dynamic memory, like dynamic arrays and strings are reference counted.

But i still do not see why this is an anachronism. Do you consider manual memory management an anachronism?

Re: Turkey buys Delphi licenses for an estimated one million students

#247

Post by thu2111 »

blub wrote: post #118
oefrha wrote: post #21

I too have a soft spot for Object Pascal but > Getting object-pascal back into universities and education is very important. Not just for Delphi as a product and Embarcadero as a company, but to ensure that the next generation of software developers are given a firm grasp on fundamental programming concepts; concepts that represent the building-blocks that all software rests on; a curriculum that has taken heavy dama…

Java and C# are a morass of complexity. There is no job or project where you just use the language Java/C#, you have to pull their immense libraries and frameworks in too. On the other hand Delphi's just Delphi. That's quite refreshing in a world where everything depends on everything else.

Because most jobs and projects have complex requirements that aren't satisfied by the standard library of ANY language. But that's irrelevant for teaching.

The Java/.NET stdlibs are huge. They are more than sufficient to teach basically any of the foundational skills. Then if you want to learn Hibernate or ORMs, no problem, that's only a small extra step.

Re: Turkey buys Delphi licenses for an estimated one million students

#248

Post by gdy »

billfruit wrote: post #186
vladsanchez wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the problem with it? Programming snob? Isn't it still C programming after all? I don't understand the problem with people bashing Borland after all these years! Didn't you know that the accomplished Mr Anders Hejlsberg was behind Borland (TurboPascal and Delphi), before he was appointed to develop Microsoft C# and Typescript? So, what's the/your problem!?

May be one problem might be that it might condition learners to the peculiarities of programming for DOS and its archaic memory model, which aren't that of relevance to modern systems.

Delphi never allowed to build DOS apps.

Re: Turkey buys Delphi licenses for an estimated one million students

#249

Post by agumonkey »

cesarb wrote: post #189
agumonkey wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking about that, rust html docs gobs a whopping 400MB (2/3 of the install size IIRC). When compressed they're 22MB.

Not long ago, there was support on Firefox to directly open HTML pages within compressed files (through the jar: protocol). If that still existed, it would be an option to distribute the rust HTML docs within a compressed .jar file, and let the browser read directly from it.

yeah that's a pity

albeit there's still zcat

Re: Turkey buys Delphi licenses for an estimated one million students

#250

Post by briandear »

aortega wrote: post #22
trimboffle wrote: post #3

I have a soft spot for Delphi but this is odd. Delphi has seen its day. Any number of other languages can be taught for free... python is probably a more relevant choice.

> python is probably a more relevant choice. Python doesn't have any standard graphical IDE or even GUI widgets. No modern language can create GUI applications with the ease of use of Delphi, except maybe .NET (which is based on Delphi).

> No modern language can create GUI applications with the ease of use of Delphi

Swift and Interface Buikder?

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