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Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

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Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#81

Post by edw519 »

iheartmemcache wrote: post #70
pjmlp wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 years ago I was discussing these arguments between those using Assembly and those that dared to use C, Pascal, Basic and Modula-2 in home computers. 20 years ago I was discussing these arguments between those using C, Turbo Pascal and those that dared to use C++, Object Pascal features in Turbo Pascal/Delphi. So I still envision the day managed languages get to the next discussion cycle. > what exactly did .NET Na…

I apologize if I came off snarky; my intention wasn't to be argumentative. All of my questions were posed with genuine curiosity rather than with the passive-aggressive tone I may have unintentionally conveyed. I certainly am not in that group of language warriors. I don't have any allegiances to languages, platforms, styles of languages, or even architectures (I'll use a Harvard based over von Neumann if it gets the…

(Please keep on posting and don't disappear like the good posters of yesteryear (edw519, grellas, etc))

Thanks, Andrew. I didn't disappear. Just spending more time building and less time posting.

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#82

Post by omaranto »

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…

I didn't know Free Pascal had generics!

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#83

Post by kennydude »

TimJYoung wrote: post #65
kennydude wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"cross platform" to whatever they feel like. I remember in college my teacher bought the new version for that. Turned out "Native Android support" was phonegap which isn't native.

Absolutely false: http://blog.marcocantu.com/blog/compiling_android_apps_delph...

College was before 2013 and I haven't looked at it since.

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#84

Post by tormeh »

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

C isn't simple. It has few parts, yes, but it requires you to combine them in ghastly ways. It also has the worst typing I can imagine.

Try using calloc, then you can tell me that C is simple.

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#85

Post by coldtea »

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's not associated with any evil corporate entity, allowing you to praise it "ironically" (e.g. C#)

I don't think many people praise C# "ironically" (or that that is even a thing).

It really IS a good language for its domain.

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#86

Post by coldtea »

tychuz wrote: post #43
gedrap wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

To be honest they should teach JavaScript instead of Python in highschools. Websites ('web apps'..) are a big deal in, atleast, teenager's life, so they could atleast install Tampermonkey plugin and script some functionality for their favorite websites. Meanwhile after learning python if you won't work in IT is useless. Plus requirement to install Python, include python in PATH and use CMD to launch .py scripts is a…

>To be honest they should teach JavaScript instead of Python in highschools. Websites ('web apps'..) are a big deal in, atleast, teenager's life, so they could atleast install Tampermonkey plugin and script some functionality for their favorite websites.

I've never ...monkeypatched websites, and I've been a professional web programmer for 17 years. Now, I could very well be an outlier, but I don't recall any of tens of tech colleagues or friends in over 4 countries really going into that.

I don't think that's a valid use case for teenagers to learn JS for. There many other reasons of course -- but monkey-patching "their favorite websites" would be very low in that list.

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#87

Post by coldtea »

For a big, modern, highly successful product written in Pascal (Delphi), see FL Studio. A high performance entry-level DAW, complete with a fully scalable vector based UI.

https://www.image-line.com/flstudio/

They even started porting in to OS X, which was problematic before as they had to wait for Pascal on OS X to get up to par -- it's now in beta stage (available for end-user testing), and should be released sometime around late next year.

Details here: https://support.image-line.com/knowledgebase/base.php?ans=11...

(The in-development OS X version is with fully NATIVE Pascal code, NOT to be confused with their earlier attempt to ship the PC version + WINE libraries).

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#88

Post by sfk »

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…

I think Python is a good language, but not for learning.

Everything that relates to theory (scoping, object system, typing) is poorly specified and has loads of special cases that can only be understood by using the language a lot.

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#89

Post by PeCaN »

meekins wrote: post #53
tl wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very Windows-centric view of the world. Macs are increasing popular in education and come with Python pre-installed. Linux comes with Python pre-installed. iOS / Android require installing an app to do local programming either way, and I'd argue the Python writing apps are better than their javascript writing apps. Microsoft should fix the "bug" that its operating system is missing interpreters for Perl, Pyt…

Windows actually has a Javascript (well, the JScript dialect of ECMAScript) interpreter out of the box in the form of Windows Script Host. It also supports VBScript. You can play with it on the command line using the cscript command.

The most interesting part is that you can script applications with it. I recall writing a script that played Google's running game during the Olympics a while back when I was learning to program.

Re: Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0

#90

Post by PeCaN »

kennydude wrote: post #54
alberte wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...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 :-)

"cross platform" to whatever they feel like. I remember in college my teacher bought the new version for that. Turned out "Native Android support" was phonegap which isn't native.

It's actually native now, albeit kind of a mess (or at least the C++ version is; I haven't used Delphi). For example, Windows/x86, Windows/x64, and ARM are all different compilers (OS X and ARM are both clang; x64 is an older clang, x86 is totally different) that support different features and have subtly different behavior sometimes. Then there are differences between VCL and Firemonkey, so don't even try porting an existing Win32 app.

It's only portable if you try really hard.

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