What are some good modern books on Free/Object Pascal?

[Aik_T]

Hi all, I would like to know what are some worthwhile books about Object Pascal that came out not too long ago? I am already reading Marco Cantu, I've also seen a few books that only cover the introduction. I would like to expand my set of books. If possible, more about Free Pascal and Lazarus. I have seen some Delphi books, but they are very old. I would like to read something similar to Prata or Lippman's books, but about Pascal itself. Programming is a hobby for me, but still, I would like to have an idea of modern practices rather than reading approaches from early 2000s.
Thanks in advance!

[salvadordf]

Here you have a good collection :

https://wiki.freepascal.org/Pascal_and_Lazarus_Books_and_Magazines

[Aik_T]

Here you have a good collection :

https://wiki.freepascal.org/Pascal_and_Lazarus_Books_and_Magazines

Yeah, I've seen that list. Unfortunately more than half of the books are introductory. They literally start with “Introduction to ...” or “Getting Started with ...”. Some of the books, as I understand it, are not distributed in PDF format - only the printed book. That said, I would like at least a brief review, to understand the focus and quality of the book.
I think the ideal list of book recommendations is this answer to Stack Overflow: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/388242/the-definitive-c-book-guide-and-list.
But this is a C++ list
Maybe I'm just demanding too much

[egsuh]

Your requests are little bit confusing. If you step further from introductory level, Pascal itself hasn't changed much from several tens of years ago. If you are looking for new features added recently then you have to read recent books (which are rare), but if you want to understand deeper than introductory level, old books would suffice, I guess --- not sure.

[Aik_T]

but if you want to understand deeper than introductory level, old books would suffice, I guess --- not sure.

But what about regular expressions, generics, libraries? I don't know old pascal and wouldn't be able to separate the obsolete material in old books from the current stuff. That's why I'm asking for something new. In C++, as I understand it, the standard library has only been extended over time and become a humongous monster. As for modern Pascal, I don't know which things are current and which are not. Some footnotes in the documentation say that some function or library is deprecated and something else should be used. I would like to be able to read new material at once, where such things are already filtered out and modern practices of using language constructs, libraries, etc. are presented.
Maybe I'm just misunderstanding how much pascal has changed over time and the old books are still relevant. But then again, I haven't dealt with Turbo Pascal or old Delphi

[440bx]

Hi all, I would like to know what are some worthwhile books about Object Pascal that came out not too long ago?

From your opening statement and what you stated in later posts, I believe your best best is FPC's Language Reference Guide.

That covers everything the language currently supports.  It is not written in tutorial form but, it does have succinct examples that in many cases are sufficient to understand the concepts. At 268 pages, it doesn't waste your time with tangents.

If you get stuck on something, there is this forum where there are a lot of knowledgeable people who will gladly help in the measure they can.

Honestly, I think that's the best way to go about learning what FPC can do.  That guide and a little effort on your part will go a very, very long way in a much shorter amount of time than reading what often are long explanations for simple concepts that are much too common in books.

HTH.

[Aik_T]

That covers everything the language currently supports.  It is not written in tutorial form but, it does have succinct examples that in many cases are sufficient to understand the concepts.

You may be right, but just for a beginner like me, books in a more accessible way can explain some things. Anyway, from what I understand, there isn't books what I'm looking for, so will probably have to read the documentation
Anyway, thanks for answers!

[440bx]

You may be right, but just for a beginner like me, books in a more accessible way can explain some things.

While the reference guide doesn't hand hold the reader, it is still quite readable and fairly easy to understand.

It may be a little bit hard at the beginning but, it will get easier to read as your knowledge level grows.  It's like everything, no pain, no gain

[Thaddy]

For more advanced programmers that are already proficient in other languages I would recommend "The Tomes of Delphi" series of books. They are old but still relevant.

[Warfley]

Well it's something I also noticed in the past, a lot of the reading material on Pascal is not necessarily outdated but dated. It very often mostly considering the programming style from the 90s/00s mostly focusing on the big boilerplate heavy OOP style.
There are so many tools in the language, function pointers, generics, operator overloading, advanced records, enumerators, management operators, anonymous functions, and so much more, that allows for so much more, yet it is barely covered.

Take for example this very simple way of utilizing the type system:

Code: Pascal  [Select][+][-]

1. type
2.   TVector2D = record
3.     X, Y: Integer;
4.   end;
5.  
6.   TPosition = type TVector2D;
7.   TSize = type TVector2D;
8.  
9. procedure DrawRect(pos: TPosition; size: TSize);
10.  
11. var
12.   p: TPosition;
13.   s: TSize;
14. begin
15.   DrawRect(s, p); // Error because type mismatch
16. end.

This allows you to add semantics to your data by reintroducing the same type as a different symbol. This way the compiler catches if you by accident pass the wrong argument for the field.

Even though it's a very basic and fundamental feature of the typesystem, you usually don't see it covered in most material aimed at teaching FreePascal, and even many seasond pascal programmers don't know about this

[Warfley]

My first reaction to these people who want to “read books” rather than write code is to assume that they aren’t serious about learning pascal.

I’ve seen things where types of same sort don’t match for parameter passing somewhere a long time ago.

Well I mean first, books usually contain examples and exercises for writing code, so it's not just reading the book. And different people learn differently. I personally never could work with books, because working through a chapter followed by a set of some artifically crafted exercises never held my attention, and I need a project on my own initiative to keep me engaged. But I know others who learn best bit by bit as provided by books or courses

[Joanna]

I agree, A project can really help you focus on what you want to learn. There is probably too much about pascal  programming to learn in one lifetime anyhow.

[Aik_T]

I’ve met quite a few people who don’t know pascal and sneer at the idea of reading the perfectly good books I offer them.

At what point did I mock the books offered to me? I just want to be able to refer to a modern, up-to-date source without worrying that the suggested practice may have become outdated because of the year the book was published. I don't claim to know anything about Pascal to say that old books don't have useful information. I'm just saying that I can NOT, by virtue of not having dealt with older versions of pascal, separate outdated practices from those that are current. If I were a professional programmer fully aware of modern programming approaches, I wouldn't be asking this question.
However, I don't have the proper experience, so I'm asking people who have been studying this language for years and spinning through sources and materials on this language for help. Without negativity or arrogance

[Aik_T]

For more advanced programmers that are already proficient in other languages I would recommend "The Tomes of Delphi" series of books. They are old but still relevant.

Thanks!

[440bx]

My first reaction to these people who want to “read books” rather than write code is to assume that they aren’t serious about learning pascal.

People who read books learn to write better code than those who just write code, i.e, throw code at the computer until it _seems_ to work. 

I'd say, it's the exact opposite of what you stated.  Someone who invests the time to read one or more books about a subject, Pascal language or any other area of knowledge, is usually serious about learning the subject, otherwise they wouldn't invest the time to read books.

Lastly, you quite often mention that we, the Pascal community, should do what we can to promote Pascal.  One way to do that, would be to be a bit more welcoming of questions and less judgemental and prejudiced about a newcomer's intentions.