Object Pascal decline?

[hinst]

btw what if I told you that in fact Pascal is a victim of human nature Borland. How is that, you might ask... Well, let's say that once upon a time Pascal programming language was invented. Its syntax was pretty strict, so it had some advantages. Then Borland released Delphi, introduced OOP extension for Pascal. And then they did nothing, but set high prices on their product and grab money. For years. Delphi XE5 costs $4000.  Wut? And yet they failed to introduce such simple thing as built-in stack trace info. So you can't get call stack at runtime at all. How is one supposed to debug an application written in Delphi then? Use external tools, which are not free either. So to obtain stack trace in your Delphi app you need to purchase commercial external tools. Well, now it's not Borland, it's Embarcadero guys...

If only Delphi wasn't such overpriced piece of sh*t, then both FPC & Lazarus would never have to be developed. This is how it should have been:
Delphi for students: $10
Delphi for independent developers: $100
Delphi for enterprise: $1000
Delphi compiler (no GUI): Open Source & Completely free for everyone
// and of course Delphi compiler should be available for Linux.
// If only Delphi compiler was open sourced, say, in 2000, maybe Lazarus would be developed for it instead of FPC

What we have now instead:
Delphi costs $4000
Delphi developers failed to introduce compiler for Linux. (In fact, it is even worse than that: there was Kylix (Delphi for Linux) at some point, but they just dropped it long ago.
Delphi team failed to provide so much more improvements which were much needed (for example such basic things as stack trace info, which I mentioned earlier).

So now instead of having an unique centralized community "one company - one language - for all" Pascal developers have to struggle with various sh*t (I'm not calling FPC shit, but it could be much better in my opinion)

[marcov]

This is the Lazarus forum, not the "I hate Embarcadero" forum.

Anyway, there are several factual discrepancies:

- The standard edition of Delphi doesn't cost $4000, more like $1000. Only the most expensive ones costs $4000.
- That price has only increased in Embarcadero times. Before it (in Borland times) it was more like half the current $1000.
- There is the $200 starter version http://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi/starter

[hinst]

I don't know, wherever I look, I only see $4000 price;
following the web link you provided, I don't see any prices; it only says that in case you earn $1000 with Delphi, then you have to purchase "normal" edition of Delphi

[marcov]

I don't know, wherever I look, I only see $4000 price;
following the web link you provided, I don't see any prices; it only says that in case you earn $1000 with Delphi, then you have to purchase "normal" edition of Delphi

Search for the correctly named product, and click "shop" or "by in shop" and then you see prices.  Professional=$1000, starter=$200  (they count 1$=Eur 1 though). Enterprise is the lowest version with their
remote database support. But you can use professional and ZEOS just fine.

But the main point is that you shouldn't do such rants if you don't check your facts. I checked Delphi pricing in 2 minutes or so.

[Rails]

btw what if I told you that in fact Pascal is a victim of human nature Borland. How is that, you might ask... Well, let's say that once upon a time Pascal programming language was invented. Its syntax was pretty strict, so it had some advantages. Then Borland released Delphi, introduced OOP extension for Pascal. And then they did nothing, but set high prices on their product and grab money.

Well, no, not at all. You have it completely wrong. Borland's first foray into Pascal was Turbo Pascal, which was released way back in 1983. There were numerous iterations of TP before Borland unleashed Dephi on the world. I don't remember exactly what the early versions of Delphi cost, but I know they were inexpensive. I bought one of the earlier versions for about $100 US as a hobbyist programmer. The prices back them were certainly in line with what other compiler suites were going for. Gradually, Borland, like just the rest of the development software houses, drove the prices sky high looking for big returns from the enterprise customers while shafting the little guy.

They were no better or worse than the rest of them.
 

[davect]

I don't remember exactly what the early versions of Delphi cost, but I know they were inexpensive. I bought one of the earlier versions for about $100 US as a hobbyist programmer.

FWIW, I bought Delphi 5 Professional in early 2000 for around $600 USD...

[Morton]

They were no better or worse than the rest of them.

At the start Borland was way better than the rest.
Turbo Pascal 1.0 was incredibly cheap, even a simple text processor was more expensive.
Inferior compilers were priced ten times higher.

[Avishai]

And Turbo Pascal's compiler was FAST!  It made other compilers look like they were broken.

[Rails]

They were no better or worse than the rest of them.

At the start Borland was way better than the rest.
Turbo Pascal 1.0 was incredibly cheap, even a simple text processor was more expensive.
Inferior compilers were priced ten times higher.

You quoted me out of context. My reference to no better or worse than the rest came after I pointed out that in the end they raised prices sky high just like the rest of the compiler makers. It had nothing to do with how good or cheap their stuff was in the beginning.  Borland, rebooted as Inprise after making some really poor business decisions, simply abandoned the hobbyist programmer as did all the big software companies.

[marcov]

You quoted me out of context. My reference to no better or worse than the rest came after I pointed out that in the end they raised prices sky high just like the rest of the compiler makers. It had nothing to do with how good or cheap their stuff was in the beginning.  Borland, rebooted as Inprise after making some really poor business decisions, simply abandoned the hobbyist programmer as did all the big software companies.

They did try with the Turbo Explorer series in D2006 times, which was surprisingly liberal, just like Embarcadero is trying with the Delphi Starter version now.

[vfclists]

I think the issue is not Object Pascal, it is having a Pascal development environment that solves computer users needs and not only program/application developers needs. It is clear that a lot of FreePascal users are hobbyists/users and a compiled system does not serve their needs well enough.

Object Pascal is a developer rather than and end user oriented language. Even when you are using it for hobbyists/personal needs you still work in a developer oriented mindset. Compile time and run time errors virtually guarantee that. Using Access or Excel is more user-oriented, when there is an error you are dropped into the debugger and can probably continue after changing some variables, without having to restart. The application itself is equally the end user and the developer environment. Python, Ruby, LISP etc are also the same.

With Linux for instance I have been exploring Gambas because I need something I can work with interactively. It just isn't practical to develop everything on  a system that leaves you stuck when there is an error and you need to load the compiler and run the same execution sequence and find where the problem occurs.

What is missing for Pascal users is something which offers an scripting/interpreter/interactive environment, but can also be packaged or compiled into standalone application when necessary. ie a Pascal Script or a DWScript based environment similar to Visual Basic or Borland's Paradox.

 I suspect that part of the problem of Lazarus and FreePascal's slow progress is that it doesn't serve the interactive needs of its contributors/developers well enough. When you need a native code application it is as good as anything else.

It isn't actually a Lazarus issue, but the Lazarus community appears to be the best equipped one to tackle such a need. Such environments exist, like Smart Mobile Studio, pdScript and ElevateWeb (for the browser) but are commercial and only available for Windows.

[marcov]

I think the issue is not Object Pascal, it is having a Pascal development environment that solves computer users needs and not only program/application developers needs. It is clear that a lot of FreePascal users are hobbyists/users and a compiled system does not serve their needs well enough.

They are still hobby programmers, and not users. Personally I think the comparison between Lazarus (an environment solely aimed at development) and office applications (which are general applications with a programming environment attached to it) is completely wrong. Apples and oranges.
 
If you really feel that way, maybe you should start looking for a different project, since this doesn't seem to match the direction of Lazarus/FPC. The objective of FPC was always to be a compiler, and I doubt that will change.

[vfclists]

You are assuming that I am  criticising the Pascal language or Lazarus/FPC developers but that's not my case. I am making a distinction here between a language and the usage environments that are available for it.

The decline of Pascal is not a matter of lacking new converts, but existing users choosing other languages, not because they are superior but because the developing environments suit their all round needs better. And the OP is right, Borland/Embarcadero messed it up, or a lot of the team left Borland for Microsoft to go and develop C#.

Ideally you would want to use the same language for everything everywhere, but if your preferred language works only as a compiler then it gets frustrating, but that is not the fault of Lazarus/FPC developers or Embarcadero for that matter because those tools were developed to serve application developers needs.

I think the issue is not Object Pascal, it is having a Pascal development environment that solves computer users needs and not only program/application developers needs. It is clear that a lot of FreePascal users are hobbyists/users and a compiled system does not serve their needs well enough.

They are still hobby programmers, and not users. Personally I think the comparison between Lazarus (an environment solely aimed at development) and office applications (which are general applications with a programming environment attached to it) is completely wrong. Apples and oranges.
 
If you really feel that way, maybe you should start looking for a different project, since this doesn't seem to match the direction of Lazarus/FPC. The objective of FPC was always to be a compiler, and I doubt that will change.

[jack616]

Without picking on anyone in this this thread I just want to say that I think the total
lack of education demonstrated here is quite shocking to me. But then 99% of the people
calling themselves professional programmers barely know the difference between
a compiler and an interpreter anyway. Many seem to think C is a low level language
(someone actually said that to me)

On the subject of price - When I bought Delphi-3 (CS) it cost me £2,350
I still use it today although as my recent posts suggest  - I am trying to see
how much I can convert to lazarus.   So far I've been delighted enough to re-start
a commercial application.  FPC/lazarus are becoming very stable and useful tools.

If I remember rightly borland gave away Delphi-3 desktop edition free for home
users on a magazine cover.

[Avishai]

jack616, your comment isn't just unjustifiable, it's arrogant to an extreme.