Forum Overview :: Rants
 
Re: Pascal/Delphi by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/20/2012, 5:34pm PDT
Oom Shnibble wrote:

Please don't say that Pascal is like Basic.
I've used both. Pascal and Basic both go back to Algol-60. You can tell the roots of a language by what its loop index construct is. (A loop index is a language keyword that is used to initialize a variable used in a loop which varies the value of the variable on each pass through that block of code.) Fortran is by itself with DO as is Cobol with PERFORM VARYING. But Basic, C, Pascal, and derivatives of them all use the same construct: FOR.

I group Pascal and Basic together as "accessible" languages. They were both designed as teaching tools, they are easily usable even by unskilled people (an example of a program in Basic was once printed in TV Guide, no less!) and they're much less complicated than C and the horrible mess of C++.

Oom Shnibble wrote:

Pascal is looking a bit dated

The original Standard Pascal is dated, and frankly, is unusable as a serious programming language in the way that a horse-drawn Conestoga wagon today is unusable as a serious form of transportation for a family, although they (both Standard Pascal and Conestoga wagons) were good and usable developments at the time they were invented.

Object Pascal, either with the commercial Delphi or with the open-source Free Pascal, which even has its own forms system so you can write an application with forms (windows) and run it on Microsoft Windows or X Windows, is currently usable for writing serious real-world problem solving applications which would be used now. For anything except perhaps system programming I'll put Object Pascal up against C or C++ any day of the week. If Pascal had the support added to handle hardware access as well as C is used for that purpose I'd put it against that, too. In fact, with the ability to inline assembly code I'd say that Pascal is as usable for anything done by C or C++ and with a lot less work and a lot more safety built in.

Oom Shnibble wrote:

but back in the day [Pascal] was a great language. It abstracted away a lot of the more fiddly pointer based techniques from C/C++ but still allowed you access to them if you wanted it. The language was neat, well structured and was condusive to easy to follow code which is why for a long time it was the defacto language for teaching programming.

Delphi which was based on object Pascal was a great application development language and IDE which was way ahead of its time. Unfortunately the combination of shitty management at Borland and ruthless business practices at Microsoft killed it.


I don't think Pascal was "killed" as much as the web came along and it wasn't there, with the scripting languages either using C or C derivatives - PHP and Perl are very close, and they're both derivatives of C - and so, the lack of support for Pascal as a web application development tool made it irrelevant for a lot of people.
PREVIOUS NEXT REPLY QUOTE
 
Jesus Fucking Christ. People. by Oom Shnibble 04/17/2012, 11:10pm PDT NEW
    Context? by Entropy Stew 04/18/2012, 12:57am PDT NEW
        Re: Context? by Oom Shnibble 04/18/2012, 1:43am PDT NEW
    I have some news for you, Om by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/18/2012, 1:07am PDT NEW
        Um by Fullofkitttens 04/18/2012, 5:14am PDT NEW
            This is correct. You're a much better programmer than TDARCOS by Entropy Stew 04/18/2012, 8:26am PDT NEW
                Oh, and storage space is also increased by Entropy Stew 04/18/2012, 8:36am PDT NEW
                    Using a tree structure is an overcomplicated method, at least now by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/19/2012, 10:22am PDT NEW
                        You're a disaster by Entropy Stew 04/19/2012, 1:06pm PDT NEW
                            I forgot to mention your insane touting of this as a better approach vs trees NT by Entropy Stew 04/19/2012, 1:35pm PDT NEW
                            Actually, I know what I'm doing. Do you what you are doing? by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/19/2012, 7:43pm PDT NEW
                                Your data structure is analogous to a hash table with 27 buckets by Entropy Stew 04/20/2012, 1:02am PDT NEW
                                    Re: Your data structure is analogous to a hash table with 27 buckets by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/20/2012, 5:43pm PDT NEW
                                        Get dunked, son by Entropy Stew 04/20/2012, 9:26pm PDT NEW
                                            Re: Get dunked, son by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/21/2012, 2:28am PDT NEW
                                                Oh Jesus I get it now. by The Happiness Engine 04/21/2012, 9:02am PDT NEW
                                                    Oh, it's just a really shitty skip list, then NT by Entropy Stew 04/21/2012, 9:26am PDT NEW
                                                There's more than one way to implement a hash table by Entropy Stew 04/21/2012, 10:40am PDT NEW
                                    His data structure is analogous to 27 buckets of shit. NT by Orange Devil Bat 05/12/2012, 9:13am PDT NEW
                        hey tansin by jeep 04/21/2012, 6:10pm PDT NEW
                            Re: hey tansin by Entropy Stew 04/22/2012, 6:07am PDT NEW
                                Re: hey tansin by jeep 04/22/2012, 8:10am PDT NEW
                                    you would not believe the fucking scrub phds I've been handed to work with by jeep 04/22/2012, 8:19am PDT NEW
                                        PhD is the rubber stamp indicating either greatness or utter uselessness by Entropy Stew 04/22/2012, 10:18am PDT NEW
                                            I've learned to avoid the master's ones altogether by jeep 04/22/2012, 6:36pm PDT NEW
                            Re: hey tansin by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/24/2012, 1:53am PDT NEW
                                Re: hey tansin by jeep 04/24/2012, 5:57am PDT NEW
            What is Pascal and why it is used by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/19/2012, 9:31am PDT NEW
                Pascal is a terrible tinkertoy dead programming language. NT by Too boring, didn't read 04/19/2012, 4:26pm PDT NEW
                Pascal/Delphi by Oom Shnibble 04/19/2012, 11:34pm PDT NEW
                    Also (Mini-rant) by Oom Shnibble 04/19/2012, 11:44pm PDT NEW
                        Re: Also (Mini-rant) by Dangerous Dave 04/20/2012, 7:20am PDT NEW
                            The schools around here (Big Ten) start with Python then go to C++. by Fullofkitttens 04/20/2012, 7:39am PDT NEW
                            Re: Also (Mini-rant) by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/20/2012, 6:22pm PDT NEW
                                Re: Also (Mini-rant) by Dangerous Dave 04/20/2012, 9:37pm PDT NEW
                                Re: Also (Mini-rant) by Entropy Stew 04/20/2012, 10:40pm PDT NEW
                        Re: Also (Mini-rant) by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/20/2012, 5:54pm PDT NEW
                            Re: Also (Mini-rant) by Entropy Stew 04/20/2012, 9:44pm PDT NEW
                                Re: Also (Mini-rant) by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/21/2012, 4:24pm PDT NEW
                                    Corection, I mean "one block of 511K free" in above article NT by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/21/2012, 4:24pm PDT NEW
                                    That's just a smart allocator. Even C has them by Entropy Stew 04/22/2012, 5:32am PDT NEW
                                        It's still automatic garbage collection by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/24/2012, 2:00am PDT NEW
                                            No it isn't, you ignorant motherfucker. How can you be wrong so often? by Entropy Stew 04/24/2012, 3:46am PDT NEW
                                                So you really think insulting someone is going to get them to listen to you? NT by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/27/2012, 5:37pm PDT NEW
                                                    Pretty sure he's serious about the ignorant part, maybe even the mother fucker! NT by Worm 04/27/2012, 6:04pm PDT NEW
                                                        I never fucked my mother. She charged too much. NT by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 05/10/2012, 6:07pm PDT NEW
                                                    OH GOD HIS FEELINGS NT by Entropy Stew 04/27/2012, 6:36pm PDT NEW
                                                SPOILERS: He so fucked up the cheeseburger. It's amazing, you should check it ou NT by The Happiness Engine 04/27/2012, 8:53pm PDT NEW
                    Re: Pascal/Delphi by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/20/2012, 5:34pm PDT NEW
        What the fuck does this have to do with pointers? NT by Entropy Stew 04/18/2012, 8:44am PDT NEW
            Re: What the fuck does this have to do with pointers? by Ice Cream Jonsey 04/18/2012, 9:07am PDT NEW
                Exactly right, Jonsey, you nailed it! by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 04/19/2012, 10:32am PDT NEW
                    I got yer back, Commander. NT by Ice Cream Jonsey 04/19/2012, 11:55am PDT NEW
                Counterpoint by Ray of Light 05/06/2012, 1:49pm PDT NEW
                    HAHAHAHAH by Entropy Stew 05/06/2012, 5:35pm PDT NEW
                        Re: HAHAHAHAH by jeep 05/10/2012, 6:41pm PDT NEW
                            also I hope you mean I don't sound like I went to school for cs by jeep 05/10/2012, 6:42pm PDT NEW
                                Neither did I NT by Entropy Stew 05/10/2012, 8:16pm PDT NEW
                                    Your degree is in scare quotes! NT by We Miss QB 05/10/2012, 8:33pm PDT NEW
                                    I did! NT by Scot Thompson, ex-Yahoo CEO 05/14/2012, 2:38am PDT NEW
                    Oh please, this has nothing to do with application development by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 05/10/2012, 6:44pm PDT NEW
                        Well I definitely feel safe now *hands over millions of credit card numbers* by Entropy Stew 05/10/2012, 9:36pm PDT NEW
                            Re: Well I definitely feel safe now *hands over millions of credit card numbers* by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 05/12/2012, 8:43am PDT NEW
                                You know less about security than you do data structures NT by Entropy Stew 05/12/2012, 4:11pm PDT NEW
                        Hi, my name is Ray by Ray of Light 05/14/2012, 1:49am PDT NEW
                            Re: Hi, my name is Ray by jeep 05/14/2012, 1:28pm PDT NEW
                            TDARCOS: wrong enough to summon Ray back from 2fort by Entropy Stew 05/14/2012, 6:19pm PDT NEW
                                Accessing one item at a time by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 05/16/2012, 3:28am PDT NEW
                                    Context: it matters NT by Entropy Stew 05/16/2012, 4:04pm PDT NEW
    Part Two of this. by Oom Shnibble 05/25/2012, 9:19am PDT NEW
        Re: Part Two of this. by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 05/27/2012, 9:51am PDT NEW
            What? Isn't the issue that you can't cast to an unrelated class? NT by Entropy Stew 05/27/2012, 1:34pm PDT NEW
                yes by Rafiki 05/27/2012, 1:58pm PDT NEW
                    I don't get how TDARCOS understood it was casting, then failed to understand the NT by Entropy Stew 05/27/2012, 2:05pm PDT NEW
                        I think I did get most of it by Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS) 05/28/2012, 10:57pm PDT NEW
                            He is close enough for government work -nt- NT by Oom Shnibble 05/29/2012, 11:56am PDT NEW
    The Future of Perl NT by Kerr 02/21/2025, 2:37pm PST NEW
 
powered by pointy