5 ms·

Turbo Pascal (which he authored) was quite the accomplishment back in the day - editor and compiler in 64K. Think about that for a minute.

barrkel 7y ago
The DOS TP compiler was still at the heart of Delphi 1 supported an inline assembler and reference-based class system, code generator, etc. in less than 43k lines of assembler (it was entirely written in assembler). (32-bit Delphi 2 switched to a C-based compiler originally written by Peter Sollich. I maintained the front end on that compiler for 6 years; PS followed AH to MS.)
- slowmovintarget 7y ago
  I got a lot of use out of that in my early career. Thank you.
  - barrkel 7y ago
    To be clear, I was only involved in 2006-12 time period. I got a lot of use out of TP 6 and Delphi 2 when I was learning, which is a significant part of the reason I ended up at Borland.
- mika9090 7y ago
  Cool. I love Delphi to this day. Nothing beats that for Windows native apps IMHO. Any interesting stories to share? I read somewhere that now the compile is a million lines of undocumented code.
mixmastamyk 7y ago
^and it was awesome.
yesenadam 7y ago
That was my first language after BASIC - I loved it! I may be remembering this wrong, but it seemed virtually free - it was about $100 when its competitors and most software was $500+. That was in about 1986. The only way to get a manual was to buy the software. Another world..
- tomcam 7y ago
  You do remember wrong. It was $49.95. It changed my life.
  - noir_lord 7y ago
    Mine too. Started with ZX BASIC then when we got a second hand PC I switched to TP - Pascal was and is an excellent first language, in that sense it met it's design goals well.
  - yesenadam 7y ago
    Ah yes, I think it was $70 here in Australia.
- dave84 7y ago
  I got a copy of Delphi 3 on the cover CD of PC Plus magazine in ‘99. Changed my 15 year old life.
  - barrkel 7y ago
    Huw Collingbourne shifted the needle on a lot of young UK & Ireland programmers, IMO.
    - dave84 7y ago
      Definitely. I owe him a lot. The late Wilf Hey also for his language columns, I remember following along with his Eiffel, Prolog and Smalltalk series as a youngster.
- badsectoracula 7y ago
  $99 was for Delphi up until version 5 for the cheapest version, which most likely explains why it was very popular among solo shareware developers. Sadly that market was abandoned by Borland when they decided to go after enterprises and renamed themselves to Inprise and their prices skyrocketed after that.
- pjmlp 7y ago
gameswithgo 7y ago
turbo pascal went straight from source to machine code. no ast!

barrkel 7y ago

The DOS TP compiler was still at the heart of Delphi 1 supported an inline assembler and reference-based class system, code generator, etc. in less than 43k lines of assembler (it was entirely written in assembler). (32-bit Delphi 2 switched to a C-based compiler originally written by Peter Sollich. I maintained the front end on that compiler for 6 years; PS followed AH to MS.)

slowmovintarget 7y ago
I got a lot of use out of that in my early career. Thank you.
- barrkel 7y ago
  To be clear, I was only involved in 2006-12 time period. I got a lot of use out of TP 6 and Delphi 2 when I was learning, which is a significant part of the reason I ended up at Borland.
mika9090 7y ago
Cool. I love Delphi to this day. Nothing beats that for Windows native apps IMHO. Any interesting stories to share? I read somewhere that now the compile is a million lines of undocumented code.

mixmastamyk 7y ago

^and it was awesome.

yesenadam 7y ago

That was my first language after BASIC - I loved it! I may be remembering this wrong, but it seemed virtually free - it was about $100 when its competitors and most software was $500+. That was in about 1986. The only way to get a manual was to buy the software. Another world..

tomcam 7y ago
You do remember wrong. It was $49.95. It changed my life.
- noir_lord 7y ago
  Mine too. Started with ZX BASIC then when we got a second hand PC I switched to TP - Pascal was and is an excellent first language, in that sense it met it's design goals well.
- yesenadam 7y ago
  Ah yes, I think it was $70 here in Australia.
dave84 7y ago
I got a copy of Delphi 3 on the cover CD of PC Plus magazine in ‘99. Changed my 15 year old life.
- barrkel 7y ago
  Huw Collingbourne shifted the needle on a lot of young UK & Ireland programmers, IMO.
  - dave84 7y ago
    Definitely. I owe him a lot. The late Wilf Hey also for his language columns, I remember following along with his Eiffel, Prolog and Smalltalk series as a youngster.
badsectoracula 7y ago
$99 was for Delphi up until version 5 for the cheapest version, which most likely explains why it was very popular among solo shareware developers. Sadly that market was abandoned by Borland when they decided to go after enterprises and renamed themselves to Inprise and their prices skyrocketed after that.
pjmlp 7y ago

gameswithgo 7y ago

turbo pascal went straight from source to machine code. no ast!