Lazarus
Programming => General => Topic started by: zeljko on February 19, 2025, 04:49:39 pm
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https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/19/delphi_turns_30
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Nice
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Few things please me more than seeing Pascal make gain in popularity.
That said, stating that Delphi/FPC is a "Type-safe C-killer" strikes me as being a rather deluded statement (not to mention grossly incorrect.) No doubt C programmers have to worry that Delphi/FPC is going to take over in the foreseeable future.
For sure, the "coup de grace" is going to be the next Pascal standard. ;)
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I’m wondering if Oracle ever was involved in pascal in any way? We seem to have a lurker from Oracle corporation.
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I’m wondering if Oracle ever was involved in pascal in any way? We seem to have a lurker from Oracle corporation.
It wasn't “Oracle” the company that was involved, but “Oracle” the database (from the same company). That's why it's named “Delphi” after all, due to “Oracle of Delphi”.
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It wasn't “Oracle” the company that was involved, but “Oracle” the database (from the same company). That's why it's named “Delphi” after all, due to “Oracle of Delphi”.
I'm getting involved against my better judgement, since this thread (particularly with its unfortunate misnaming) seems to already have done its job as trollbait.
There's currently a discussion going on at https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/19/delphi_turns_30/ marking Delphi's 30th anniversary: I'm trying to do my bit in a small way by promoting Lazarus's debugging capabilities, and nobody is trying to suggest that Rust (as the major contender for the current sexy language) has anything comparable.
Borland really did pioneer groundbreaking integrated debugging technology, integrating a form editor and debugger in a way that I believe is basically unsurpassed (although it might be equaled by the Lazarus IDE). Borland also had a tool called Intrabuilder, which was oriented towards Javascript but was otherwise in a lot of ways similar to Delphi.
Netscape had Visual Javascript, which was very similar to Intrabuilder: including very similar debugging capabilities. The Enterprise side of Netscape was assimilated by Sun, which was bought by Oracle.
My understanding (which might be incorrect) is that some of Oracle's Java development technology originated with Borland (i.e. a legitimate technology purchase). But it's interesting to speculate on whether there was a technology transfer from Borland to Netscape hence Oracle (either legitimate or via a staff defection), which would explain the similarity of Intrabuilder and Visual Javascript (both of which failed, possibly because they demanded a particular database server as the backend).
MarkMLl
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I'm trying to do my bit in a small way by promoting Lazarus's debugging capabilities
A bit off topic but..
Debugging capabilities is one of my acid tests when selecting a programming language. Anything that doesn't have a solid and capable debugger is just a toy language, simply unusable because tracking some bugs will consume an inordinate amount of time or in some rare cases be close to impossible.
Lazarus' debugger is exceptionally good and continuously getting better. The debugger alone is a good reason to select the FPC/Lazarus pair. Credit should also be given to Lazarus as a development IDE (independent of RAD), very capable and, just like its debugger, continuously getting better.
To all the members working on FpDebug, thank you for a superb debugger and, to the Lazarus team, thank you for a rather good IDE.
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As they were 30 years ago, many people find them simpler, easier and more productive than trendier languages.
No mention of readability and maintainability (extended to the docs as well as the code), which in my view is too bad.
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Great article, thanx zeljko. Within article there is a link to another interesting article about FOSS, which I find related to lazarus developers too. Like, how people manage to develope such great tools, which are essentially free?
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How would you rate Object Pascal language compared with currently popular languages like java, python, etc.?
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Great article, thanx zeljko. Within article there is a link to another interesting article about FOSS, which I find related to lazarus developers too. Like, how people manage to develope such great tools, which are essentially free?
The author's a friend of mine, who writes on FOSS for El Reg. He's also got any encyclopaedic knowledge of Linux distreaux etc.
MarkMLl
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How would you rate Object Pascal language compared with currently popular languages like java, python, etc.?
I avoid rating languages as it usually ends up as either a popularity contest, or discussions about tightness of syntax.
Neither of which is really that important for the ability to deliver somewhat fault free applications in a reasonable time.
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A problem with comparing languages ... suppose that pascal is a hammer and java is a screwdriver. they each have different jobs and different strengths and weaknesses. Ask the screwdriver to knock in a nail and it would struggle, In the same way, using a hammer to tighten a screw... good luck there!
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I avoid rating languages as it usually ends up as either a popularity contest, or discussions about tightness of syntax.
Neither of which is really that important for the ability to deliver somewhat fault free applications in a reasonable time.
FWIW, I agree with both those points.
What's more, discussions relating to "how easily a language can be debugged" have to distinguish between how much a language helps guide a programmer to write correct code (i.e. by strong type checking etc.) and how much the implementation of the language (i.e. including any IDE etc.) integrates a debugger properly.
A classic example of confusing these two is that the author of the cited article has regularly attempted to prove to me that BASIC (as originally defined) was very easily debugged, because statements could be rewritten without the need to halt the program and recompile while the same is not true of Pascal (with the possible exception of Mystic Pascal, which sank into the depths decades ago).
OK, so I concede that many BASIC implementations could do that, but BASIC (as originally defined) was such a sloppy language that progams became exponentially more difficult to get right as the size increased.
MarkMLl
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A problem with comparing languages ... suppose that pascal is a hammer and java is a screwdriver. they each have different jobs and different strengths and weaknesses. Ask the screwdriver to knock in a nail and it would struggle, In the same way, using a hammer to tighten a screw... good luck there!
Using a hammer to tighten a screw is not thread-safe.
MarkMLl
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I avoid rating languages as it usually ends up as either a popularity contest, or discussions about tightness of syntax.
Neither of which is really that important for the ability to deliver somewhat fault free applications in a reasonable time.
I do not want to rate languages. Comparing characteristics is more nearer to my intention. Simply want to know the underlying philosopies or principles.