Is Pascal the right language for me ?

[Handoko]

As I do not make money from programming, what I said should not be taken too seriously.

I remember a fellow here, he later switched to other paid development tool. He told me he was looking for a development tool which he wished to start a business. One reason he said if I remember correctly, he cannot 'yell' on the customer/technical support team if something not working as it should be if he uses Lazarus.

Also, you know if someone asks new feature and be too pushy in this forum, probably s/he will get the answer, "it is open source, take the source code and do it yourself."

I don't mean open source is bad, but I just want to let the OP know the disadvantages of using open source. Of course I could be wrong.

For you information, Godot is far too inferior compare to Unreal Engine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a694QEQeFDg

[PascalDragon]

Which I suppose could be translated as "there are more people who like what we have produced than are able (i.e. have both the time and the capability) to contribute to the project". That might actually be a healthy situation, but as has already been said it does suggest that it's wise to keep away from the "bleeding edge" (currently 3.2.0) and instead to use a version which has accumulated bugfixes (e.g. 3.0.0, with fixes to 3.0.4).

FPC 3.2.0 has accumulated many bug fixes as well that have not found their way back into 3.0.4. Also 3.2.0 is not really bleeding edge anymore. It was branched around two years ago and took all that time to ripe.

The problem is not that Lazarus and FPC are free and open source, but the lack of volunteers. That said, it's pretty rarely that you run into a breaking bug. With rather advanced generic stuff this occurs rather oftern (how i loathe the error message: "an internal exception occured during compilation" or "fpc internal error ...", which occurs nearly every time generics projects start to get big), but aside from this, if you don't do anything fancy, fpc is pretty stable.

I personally prefer exceptions and internal errors as they're usually rather easy to fix. Take a problem like this and I'd like to bash my head against the desk or the next wall.

I remember a fellow here, he later switched to other paid development tool. He told me he was looking for a development tool which he wished to start a business. One reason he said if I remember correctly, he cannot 'yell' on the customer/technical support team if something not working as it should be if he uses Lazarus.

If a customer would 'yell' at my workplace's support then he wouldn't be a customer of us for long. We try to deescalate such customers of course (and in 99% of such cases that works), but if they insist to think they're the most important being in the world then it's "We don't need to do business with you, good day". It didn't happen very often in the past, but happen it did. *shrugs*

[thehidden]

...Pascal or not Pascal...

In my opinion you can say  ** or not ** and replace the ** with any programming language. Existing or dead.

Every application or requirement has his favorite programming language. For me it is more a philosophic question, based on needs, experience, policies, etc.

There is no right or wrong programming language.

You want to use Pascal? Do it - or not. Depending on your feelings.

You want to work for somebody with Pascal or Delphi Experience. Maybe harder to find an employer, but not impossible. Pascal isn't dead as long as people talk about and use it.

[Warfley]

I don't mean open source is bad, but I just want to let the OP know the disadvantages of using open source. Of course I could be wrong.

At least with regards to software development, languages and tools, Free tools are the norm, with the overwelming majority even being FOSS, while paid tools are ususally only niche tools where there is no big community behind. In such cases FOSS simply can't survive, because it lives from there being many contributers

For you information, Godot is far too inferior compare to Unreal Engine.

Of course an engine that is only around for 5-6 years will be inferior to one thats been around for 22 years. But for the time godot is around it makes incredible progress. Especially as companies start pouring money into it, because they want to have a good FOSS engine themselves (as this is cheaper in the long run)

[Handoko]

You want to work for somebody with Pascal or Delphi Experience. Maybe harder to find an employer, but not impossible. Pascal isn't dead as long as people talk about and use it.

+1

If a customer would 'yell' at my workplace's support then he wouldn't be a customer of us for long. We try to deescalate such customers of course (and in 99% of such cases that works)

The problem is, we don't have any 'real' customer service here.

[thehidden]

The problem is, we don't have any 'real' customer service here.

 
Have you tried to get 'real' customer support from some companies?

Not much companies have a support which is worth enough to call it so...

My experience: Have a Lazarus problem, talk about here and problem mostly solved. Some can't be solved, but this is a nature thing. Not every idea is possible in real live.

[MarkMLl]

Also, you know if someone asks new feature and be too pushy in this forum, probably s/he will get the answer, "it is open source, take the source code and do it yourself."

There is, obviously, a massive learning curve... and it tends to be exponential relative to the size of the codebase.

However as somebody (Marco?) said earlier, if somebody really had a requirement he could always ask if any of the core developers were available for paid contract work, if necessary to generate a "fork" for him if what he needed was likely to be incompatible with the mainstream.

MarkMLl

[MarkMLl]

Have you tried to get 'real' customer support from some companies?

20+ years on, I still cringe whenever I hear Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" due to the hours I spent listening to it waiting for OS/2 support from IBM- for which I was paying. If I were in the USA I'd sue...

MarkMLl

[Handoko]

Also, you know if someone asks new feature and be too pushy in this forum, probably s/he will get the answer, "it is open source, take the source code and do it yourself."

However as somebody (Marco?) said earlier, if somebody really had a requirement he could always ask if any of the core developers were available for paid contract work, if necessary to generate a "fork" for him if what he needed was likely to be incompatible with the mainstream.

That's interesting. Please write it on the FAQ or somewhere. So if any newbie asking for hard-to-implement features, I will direct him to the page.

[MarkMLl]

https://wiki.freepascal.org/Bounties

MarkMLl

[marcov]

The problem is, we don't have any 'real' customer service here.

 
Have you tried to get 'real' customer support from some companies?

Not much companies have a support which is worth enough to call it so...

Take for instance the logical commercial party to compare with, Delphi. With the buying of Delphi you only got installation support. For actual issues or other help you needed to have subscription (usually 25% of purchase price an year, several hundred to 500-600 dollar/euro)

[thehidden]

Take for instance the logical commercial party to compare with, Delphi. With the buying of Delphi you only got installation support. For actual issues or other help you needed to have subscription (usually 25% of purchase price an year, several hundred to 500-600 dollar/euro)

For some old projects I need to support RAD Studio Enterprise. There we are talking about 1000+ for updates only...

[korba812]

Real Programmers Don't Use PASCAL
https://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/hack/realmen.html
but I'm a quiche eater 

[winni]

Hi!

This is an old version of "Real Programmers Don't Use PASCAL"

In a  newer version there is also

"Real programmers code a pattern  matching for the Jupiter moons. In the last 570 free bytes of the Voyager IV. "

Winni

[Handoko]

Lol.

Well, I'm not a real programmer. I'm just a hobbyist. That's why I use Pascal. Pascal is great for hobby projects, I remember I ever heard so.