>second, the pascal language is the closest to c and c++ i've seen, and
>being someone who is able to program in both id confidently say pascal
>can do *everything* and i mean everything >>functionally<< that c can
>do. c and c++ is for die hards and pascal just makes c more readable and
>safer to program in. Owing to its english like structure it makes a
>great tool for learning and at the same time giving enormous power plus
>safety controls. Pascal is like a very very powerful car with a great
>steering and safety system, side mirrors automatic overspeeding
>indicators :p where c and c++ is like an equal powerful car without side
>mirrors and you can very easily go off the road if you do not know the
>language well. Pascal is also one of the languages which have survived
I agree with this entirely. A lot of people don't realize that Niklaus Wirth
developed Pascal _before_ Kernighan and Richie developed C. I read
somewhere that their primary model for C was Pascal. They just replaced
some of the words with symbols, like { (for begin) and } (for end) (C has been
described in the literature as the "I hate to type" language). Further, they
eliminated the strict typing for a good reason (at the time). They were
trying to create a portable assembly language so they could write a
portable operating system (UNIX). Prior to UNIX, operating systems were
written in the assembly language of the processor. When new processors
came out, they had different op-codes which required different assembly
languages. Typical time to code up an operating system for a new processor
was about 5 years. It wasn't until the ANSI standard for C came out that
strict typing was available in C, and even then it was optional. I read
something years ago written by Kernighan (I think), that stated that they
never intended C as a language to write large applications programs, just
operating systems and small utility programs. The main reason for this
was the lack of strict typing. Now that the ANSI compliant C compilers
are around, you could argue that C is an acceptable language for apps;
however, the large number of assembly-like operators in C make it very
easy to write programs that are difficult to follow when you read someone
else's code.
By the way, Philippe Kahn (who originally wrote Turbo Pascal and founded
Borland, as everyone knows), studied under Niklaus Wirth at ETH Zurich,
(Swiss Federal Institute of Technology). See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niklaus_Wirth
for details.
Glenn Lawler
-----Original Message-----
From: Jangita [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, June 16, 2006 12:44 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [delphi-en] Delphi and where it's going
Well my history has been similar to the one below; turbo pascal 4,5,6,7
then turbo pascal for windows then delphi 1 to 7 (never really bothered
about delphi past 7) and well to me it seems almost a big mix of either
borland for one, the pascal language two and delphi - which was created
by borland *around* the pascal language so here are my thoughts on all three
borland has always been pretty confused from the first days of
purchasing word perfect then dbase from ashton tate and had its borland
office suite which it sold off, the mishaps with the inprise episode,
the messup with interbase (making it open source then closing it again)
so borland as a company might be the reason for the fall of delphi as
much as i think delphi is the *best* development tool (and note: i say
development tool; not language) for win32 owing to borlands fast(est)
pascal compiler and inginuety of the delphi language creators. so thumbs
down for borland.
second, the pascal language is the closest to c and c++ i've seen, and
being someone who is able to program in both id confidently say pascal
can do *everything* and i mean everything >>functionally<< that c can
do. c and c++ is for die hards and pascal just makes c more readable and
safer to program in. Owing to its english like structure it makes a
great tool for learning and at the same time giving enormous power plus
safety controls. Pascal is like a very very powerful car with a great
steering and safety system, side mirrors automatic overspeeding
indicators :p where c and c++ is like an equal powerful car without side
mirrors and you can very easily go off the road if you do not know the
language well. Pascal is also one of the languages which have survived
dos, dpmi, win16, win32, linux (can even be interpreted), embedded EPROM
programming and other unix etc... just like c has so its not based on
architecture. what i mean by this is pascal wasnt created to make
applications for dos or windows; it was meant to be a computer
instruction language so can be used irregardless of the platform, and
that's another quality i consider in a real language and i bet it can be
adopted into .net if someone sat down to do it... (delphi .net?)
on to delphi, delphi did to pascal what visual basic did to basic, so
naturally pascal being a compiled language kept its "features" (there
are pascal interpretors). borland also used c to come up with c builder
which is probably the best development ide ever. what i think is killing
delphi now is borland, not the language - if microsoft had come up with
delphi it would have a future. So you get people saying .net is the way
to go without having any idea on how to develop software because
microsoft put it out there and marketed it well. Dont get me wrong, c#
is a great language; but do we need another language that has to go
through years of trying and testing? then again c# but was created for a
platform so in my books it isnt really a *true* computer language.
So where is delphi going? Off the shelf in a couple of years if you ask
me; but somehow something tells me .net will do its rounds just like
java did. Great hype, then "die" down and settle where it is meant to
be. I know im with delphi for the next 5 years? I know another great
solution will come up that will "derive" from pascal and keep us going.
So delphi might die but pascal is here to stay.
Comments?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>
> I've been using Delphi for 7 years, from Delphi 1 (and I've been using
> Borland Pascal before,) and I use to think that Delphi was the best.
> However, about three years ago, I was sensing that the market goes in
> another direction, and not for once Borland was playing games with its
> developer base (remember Inprise episod? Borland C++ which iritated
> Microsoft? JBuilder which was eclipsed by... Eclipse? C#Builder?
> Delphi.Net? what about Sidekick?!? Kylix? - I still think that Borland
> was good only at Delphi for Windows, while its market strategy sucks!)
> So, three years ago I've reoriented myself to .Net.
> .Net 1.1 was a mess, but worked. These days I'm on .Net 2.0 and is
> preaty good, maybe as good as Delphi 5!
> I've done some research in Avalon, and - believe me, what is comming
> will change everything for everybody! (Avalon will unify the
> development for OS with development for Web.)
> In the end a developer has to do what a developer has to do: go with
> the market, and I agree, Delphi is no more on the market, and what's
> left of it, will go out soon. 8^( What do you figure yourself working
> with five years from now? ...
>
> Horia
>
> ----- Message from [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:mikiwoz%40yahoo.co.uk>
> ---------
> Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 23:49:43 +0200
> From: Micha? Wo?niak <[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:mikiwoz%40yahoo.co.uk>>
> Reply-To: [email protected] <mailto:delphi-en%40yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: Re: [delphi-en] Delphi and where it's going
> To: [email protected] <mailto:delphi-en%40yahoogroups.com>
>
> >> I've used Delphi since the year it was released and have used nothing
> >> else for serious production work since that time (though I've studied
> >> any number of alternatives). I totally agree it is the best Win32
> >> development tool around.
> >
> > I know I will be repeating myself here, but have you given Lazarus a
> try? I
> > know "OpenSource" sounds "not seriouss stuff", but I am sure that that is
> > changing fast and that Lazarus has some great potential - and has it
> right
> > now.
> >
> > By the way, it seems both scary and entertaining to watch how people
> ignore
> > some good and cheap (free?) solutions just because they're cheap/free
> ("nah,
> > a cheap/free thing can't be good") - vide Lazarus, FPC, Linux,
> Apache, the
> > list is as long as it gets.
> >
> > Cheers
> > Mike
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