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I also think the modern part is exaggerated here. Object Pascal was had cutting edge features and developer experience in the 1990s, but I think it's hard to se

I also think the modern part is exaggerated here. Object Pascal was had cutting edge features and developer experience in the 1990s, but I think it's hard to see it this way nowadays. There are two big features that one expects in a "modern" language that are missing in object pascal: 1. Some sort of automatic memory management that prevents memory leaks and dangling pointers. Modern languages usually have GC, automatic reference counting (like Swift or Python) or some form of static analysis (like the Rust borrow checker) - Zig is probably the only outlier here, but it does have better memory safety tooling (like defer). Object Pascal really feels like going back to C++ as it was during the 1990s and early 2000s, before smart pointers and later move semantics caught on. If I remember correctly, COM interfaces, but they carry the COM baggage and nobody is using interfaces for everything. 2. A package manager that is isolated (not impacted by the global environment), supports specifying dependency version in a configuration file and supports repeatable builds with lockfiles. fppkg doesn't seem to go that far. There are other features that you could argue for I guess, like type inference, simplified expression syntax, asynchronous I/O and more, but they would be more controversial. I don't think I can honestly call Object Pascal a modern language, and it's sad, since I still have a warm place in my heart for Pascal.

pjmlp 3y ago
There are other reference counted types with copy-on-write, like strings and dynamic arrays, it isn't only interfaces.
cxr 3y ago
> A package manager that [...] supports specifying dependency version in a configuration file This is an anti-pattern common among modern programming ecosystems that they should ideally be moving away from—and ecosystems that are not already afflicted with this sort of thing shouldn't make the mistake of making it a milestone to aim for. These versions listed in a text file that you refer to are nothing more than a way to route around one's own version control system (example: package.json and Git). The version control system should be used for version control—not text-file based hacks that end up being the source of unreproducibility. And to the extent that one's version control system can't be used because it doesn't do what you want, then that's something that should be fixed at the appropriate level (i.e. the version control system itself)—not with band-aids applied there, either.

pjmlp 3y ago

There are other reference counted types with copy-on-write, like strings and dynamic arrays, it isn't only interfaces.

cxr 3y ago

> A package manager that [...] supports specifying dependency version in a configuration file This is an anti-pattern common among modern programming ecosystems that they should ideally be moving away from—and ecosystems that are not already afflicted with this sort of thing shouldn't make the mistake of making it a milestone to aim for. These versions listed in a text file that you refer to are nothing more than a way to route around one's own version control system (example: package.json and Git). The version control system should be used for version control—not text-file based hacks that end up being the source of unreproducibility. And to the extent that one's version control system can't be used because it doesn't do what you want, then that's something that should be fixed at the appropriate level (i.e. the version control system itself)—not with band-aids applied there, either.