Lazarus
Announcements => Third party => Topic started by: qdos on April 15, 2011, 08:04:09 pm
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I just want to thank everyone that has given their support of the OP4JS project. Especially those who have offered to donate time, code and effort. After having analyzed the DWS parser and talking with the current maintainer - I at least have a "yes that will work" on the theoretical side of the project. DWS does indeed have all the metadata we need to target Javascript as a platform for Object Pascal. And after only a couple of weekends work - I have code that extracts data from the symbol-trees and transcodes them to javascript.
I actually "compiled" (or transcoded, this cannot be compared to a real compiler) my first Object Pascal class today, and ran it under Safari on my mac. I think the words "standing on the shoulders of giants" fits the bill here. Im a good coder, but i'm mediocre compared to the guys behind the units i use.
I also would very much like to use lazarus for this project, but I am having problems porting over different units. Especially the units that make use of the latest Delphi features, like generics and the new RTTI system. This sadly stopped all porting (will they ever be a part of FPC?) because I have no idea how to replicate it in D7 "standard" object pascal without a complete rewrite (it would take months). So it's with a sad heart that I had to abandon Lazarus as my primary toolkit in favour of Delphi XE. It really hits me in the heart to, since I want to contribute (give back) to the Lazarus community so much.
But I at least want to thank everyone for their support, comments, tips and pointers - and I hope the end result can somehow benefit the FPC/Lazarus community as well. Never think a "spartan" is dead, we are hard to kill and have much knowledge behind us. Languages come and go - but Pascal was there in the beginning -- and it will be there at the end. Good ideas never die, they just re-surface in another form.
The project is going ahead - and we will surprice the h*** out of quite a few people
Sincerly
Jon Lennart Aasenden
delphimax.wordpress.com
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How important ARE those features ?
eg I'm puzzled how RTTI 'works' on a system that only creates a translated script ?
Scripts are at the KISS end of the spectrum, so I'd expect the focus to be more on making it reliable, than adding new twinkies ?.
Have you looked at this ?
http://www.pilotlogic.com/sitejoom/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=56&Itemid=86
Claims an Object Pascal Scripter, with a Firefox plugin.
Still beta, but it gives a reference point.
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Especially the units that make use of the latest Delphi features, like generics and the new RTTI system.
FPC had generics before Delphi. Unfortunately Delphi's implementation used both an incompatible syntax, and went a different direction that emphasizes nested typing heavily, something that is not as far in the FPC generics implementation.
This sadly stopped all porting (will they ever be a part of FPC?)
This depends on the actions of people interested in those features (hint, hint).
because I have no idea how to replicate it in D7 "standard" object pascal without a complete rewrite (it would take months). So it's with a sad heart that I had to abandon Lazarus as my primary toolkit in favour of Delphi XE. It really hits me in the heart to, since I want to contribute (give back) to the Lazarus community so much.
It shows again that in general it is not wise to overuse new features if not strictly necessary. It will only create a versioning problems (both Delphi internal, as with FPC)