Why use Pascal? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why use Pascal?

#291

Post by wsc981 » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 8:42 AM UTC

xupybd wrote: post #279

wsc981 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple of months ago I started working at a company that (mainly) develops C# libraries. The pipeline to deploy is complicated. Using a tool like ILMerge to combine DLLs into a single DLL (to prevent DLL hell issues). Using Babel to obfuscate the code base. Using nuspecs to create a Nuget package from the DLLs and various metadata. Signing the DLLs with some certificate. Then, if native stuff is included, also ensu…

Ah, I've not had to combine DLLs, obfuscate code, sign code or create Nuget packages. All of that does sound painful. What makes it easier in other languages? Is it a matter of better tooling?

I am not sure if it’s easier in other languages (no experience except mobile dev). But I do know packaging macOS and iOS apps is also a painful process and becomes more painful over time (e.g. Apple’s recently introduced notarization process).

Re: Why use Pascal?

#292

Post by wrycoder » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 2:47 PM UTC

Rochus wrote: post #81

slavapestov wrote: post #48

We need to bring back Oberon. Fast compile times, automatic memory management, live environment.

Oberon is even older than Delphi; a more modern version is Oberon+: https://oberon-lang.github.io/

Is this still actively developed?

Re: Why use Pascal?

#293

Post by Rochus » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 2:58 PM UTC

wrycoder wrote: post #292

Rochus wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oberon is even older than Delphi; a more modern version is Oberon+: https://oberon-lang.github.io/

Is this still actively developed?

Yes, see e.g. https://github.com/rochus-keller/Oberon/

Re: Why use Pascal?

#294

Post by Rochus » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 3:03 PM UTC

Tozen wrote: post #286

pjmlp wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was great for its time, nowadays we would be better off having a similar experience based on Go, C#, D,...

Add Vlang in there too, which inherited the Oberon-2 method syntax and has Pascal/Wirthian influence.

The original is much less jumbled.

Re: Why use Pascal?

#295

Post by thriftwy » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 4:56 PM UTC

yawaramin wrote: post #288

pjmlp wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those busy using R, Python, Excel, alongside PowerBI and Tableau?

No, the ones using Spark. Do keep up!

It's a bad sign if use of a language is tied to a singular framework such as Spark or Rails.

The next fad is in, the language is out.

Re: Why use Pascal?

#296

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 5:05 PM UTC

sacnoradhq wrote: post #95

Often overlooked, the Ada embedded ecosystem has advantages of maturity in static analysis, debugging, and target support.

[deleted]

Re: Why use Pascal?

#297

Post by cxr » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 5:45 PM UTC

unscaled wrote: post #216

tangus wrote: post #9

I disagree with some of their reasons. Modern: Object Pascal isn't a modern language. It was modern in 1998, maybe, but it hasn't evolved much since then. Latest big change was the addition of generics, behind almost any other language. Fast: FPC doesn't generate particularly fast code, and the nature of OP objects doesn't help with locality. It's faster than scripting languages, but generally slower than AOT compile…

I also think the modern part is exaggerated here. Object Pascal was had cutting edge features and developer experience in the 1990s, but I think it's hard to see it this way nowadays. There are two big features that one expects in a "modern" language that are missing in object pascal: 1. Some sort of automatic memory management that prevents memory leaks and dangling pointers. Modern languages usually have GC, automa…

> A package manager that [...] supports specifying dependency version in a configuration file

This is an anti-pattern common among modern programming ecosystems that they should ideally be moving away from—and ecosystems that are not already afflicted with this sort of thing shouldn't make the mistake of making it a milestone to aim for.

These versions listed in a text file that you refer to are nothing more than a way to route around one's own version control system (example: package.json and Git). The version control system should be used for version control—not text-file based hacks that end up being the source of unreproducibility. And to the extent that one's version control system can't be used because it doesn't do what you want, then that's something that should be fixed at the appropriate level (i.e. the version control system itself)—not with band-aids applied there, either.

Re: Why use Pascal?

#298

Post by app4soft » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 5:54 PM UTC

squarefoot wrote: post #27

Many people using Delphi back in the day will probably already know Lazarus, which is essentially an Open Source recreation which runs and compiles natively pretty much everywhere, Raspberry PI and similar ARM boards included. Installing libraries however can be tedious, therefore FpcUp and later FpcUpDeluxe were created to automate the task of installing the IDE along with other modules and some quite interesting ad…

> Many people using Delphi back in the day will probably already know Lazarus

If there is someone who interested in Lazarus, Qt and 2D/3D CAD software, here is an opensource boat (not only) design & simulation software project which was rewritten from Delphi.[0,1,2]

[0] https://github.com/markmal/freeship-plus-in-lazarus

[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20160128212152/http://hydronship....

[2] https://sourceforge.net/projects/freeship

Re: Why use Pascal?

#299

Post by cxr » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 8:02 PM UTC

maleldil wrote: post #100

gaze wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems a bit shallow. JavaScript equals is an abomination, which to me seems like a larger issue, and people use it just fine.

I agree that triple equals is an abomination. It's one of the many things ensuring I use JavaScript as little as possible.

You can pretty much ignore mostly anyone most of the time who screeches at you to use triple equals (strict equality comparison) instead of regular ol' "==" (abstract equality comparison). It's one of modern programming's dumbest, least well-founded memes, resulting in such brilliant advice as insisting during code review that

  typeof(foo) == 'string'

be changed to

  typeof(foo) === 'string'

because the latter is "safer". Anyone saying—anyone—this is guaranteed not to know what the hell they're talking about—and shouldn't be in a position where they're pretending that they do. It's unjustifiable and pure cargo cultism.

Re: Why use Pascal?

#300

Post by vram22 » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 8:28 PM UTC

alwillis wrote: post #195

brightsize wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh Pascal!, oh the nostalgia. I saved up the princely sum of $80-$100 back in TRS-80 Model III days to buy the Pascal 80 package, the New Classics version, which was basically a proto-IDE, and a pretty sweet one at the time. http://www.trs-80.org/pascal-80/ I recall it being a huge step up from the M-III BASIC dev environment and the games and utilities I wrote ran well enough in the 48K of RAM that was available. I…

Anyone can check out Oh! Pascal! [1] just like a library book. Even now, it's one of the best introductory programming books for any programming language. [1]: https://archive.org/details/ohpascal0000coop/mode/2up

I was interested to revisit the book, but when I tried, it says:

DOWNLOAD OPTIONS download 1 file ENCRYPTED ADOBE PDF download High Quality Page Images

In order to access your downloaded book you will need LCP-compliant or Adobe-compliant software on your device. The Internet Archive will administer this loan, but Adobe may also collect some information.

That's a turnoff.