Please note that I am advocating Lazarus for the project.. I was responding to the project leader's (defacto at this point) call for pros and cons of each language. I and one other gentleman suggested FPC/Lazarus. I posted here precisely because I do not know what constitutes a "modern" language. I am not a programmer, just a chemical engineer who has done a lot of programming (mostly in Fortran), but who switched to delphi -> kylix -> Lazarus for my own projects.
This is a community project... no companies are currently involved. The project is a continuation of an existing codebase which was written in python. Few of the people want to continue it in Python. Several want to use C#. Two of us know and love Lazarus. The application would involve calculations, database access, and a graphical user interface (visio like diagramming interface)... for reference you can look at http://www.aspentech.com/industry_solutions/oilgas/product.cfm?IndustryID=23&ProductID=274 (scroll down for screen shot) Thanks for all the input Matt On 3/3/06, Marco van de Voort <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > "My personal objective is not just to put out a simulator, but a fast > > and efficient simulator. Furthermore, personally, I do not consider a > > program portable if it is written in a language which very few can > > understand. A modern language such as any of the .NET languages will > > meet the efficiency objective but portability remains an issue. While > > I do have the Visual Studio .NET and I am happy with it, I understand > > that not everybody has it and it is not cheap. I looked at the > > Lazarus project and (at least at a first glance) it is indeed very > > "Visual" and will likely do the job. It will however, limit us to > > Pascal which is not really a modern language. For those of you who > > are in favor of using Lazarus, can you assure the rest of us that > > Pascal has been modernized? " > > IMHO the fatal flaw in this reasoning is that this opinion simply > regurgitates some IT management blurb, and doesn't really tailor a choice of > language to your needs. > > There are three different arguments that I would mention in your response: > > 1) While not nearly as bad as Python, there are potential performance issues > in using managed languages. This is not just raw calculating speed, but also > startup time, memory usage (not unimportant in scientific calculations with > large datasets!). > Worse, doing something about it often means doing speed dependant calculations > in a non managed language in a DLL. So you potentially force contributors to > learn a new language, and later have to partially back out again. > > 2) The only somewhat jusitifyable choice for "modern" programming languages > in the IT sector is hiring. One can debate if .NET and Java are new > generations, or just a glorified old hat, but the main point is that they > _are_ prolific. > > However that is not a 100% simple situation: > - First availability must be seend relative to demand (C# programmers > are the only programmer on the US top 10 most wanted list, J2EE has been so > in recent years). A lot more supply, but also a lot more hiring. > - Also, these languages are mainly business (read DB apps) oriented, and much > less scientifically. Pascal has been a scientific language for years. > - Are you going to be hiring anyway? Otherwise I would inventorise > first which suitable language is most common in your community and choose > that (Pascal, Java, C# or not). It would be stupid to e.g. offend your most > worthwhile potential contributors with a wrong language choice. > > IOW, don't be fooled by a simplistic mantrum, but do the research what > language is most suitable, and what's available in your community. > > (your actual question is pretty much unanswerable till you define "modern") > _______________________________________________ > fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org > http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal > _______________________________________________ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal