6 ms·

Cool demo. What caught my attention was this line in the description: >The terrain is procedural, generated offline by a Delphi program (Delphi is a modern ver

Cool demo. What caught my attention was this line in the description: >The terrain is procedural, generated offline by a Delphi program (Delphi is a modern version of Pascal). Nowadays I very rarely see new projects use Object Pascal or Delphi. This is somewhat disappointing since I think it really is a fine language that could be a viable alternative to C++ and Java due to its combination of high performance and clean syntax [1]. But then again, C# is very popular and it is pretty much the new Delphi. Does anyone here use Object Pascal in their current projects? [1] At least in theory. I'm not necessarily talking about the particulars of the Borland/CodeGear/Embarcadero implementation since Anders Hejlsberg left for Microsoft, which were not always perfect.

nestoras 14y ago
Thank you and I completely agree! I hold VCL especially in very high regard. As for Delphi, I think it doesn't get nearly the mindshare it deserves. As a side note, the CAD software we're making in my company is entirely written in Delphi (with some bits in assembly): http://www.anadelta.com/index-en.php?s=exported http://www.anadelta.com/index-en.php?s=exported You may recognize the sky :)
Tloewald 14y ago
I think there's a lot of low profile software out there written in Delphi which doesn't get mentioned because it's not a reason to buy, and may be a reason not to buy. There's a nice windows installer tool I occasionally use written in Delphi.
aubergene 14y ago
I found some pleasant similarities between Pascal and Go (Golang)
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  What are they, aside from just := and the lack of brackets?
  - jbarham 14y ago
    Go's declaration syntax (http://golang.org/doc/articles/gos_declaration_syntax.html http://golang.org/doc/articles/gos_declaration_syntax.html) and package system are inspired by the Pascal family, according to the FAQ (http://golang.org/doc/faq#ancestors http://golang.org/doc/faq#ancestors).
  - snogglethorpe 14y ago
    Actually Go's use of := is almost anti-pascal: it means something rather different, but similar enough to be confusing, and so is likely to confuse anybody who's used to the vastly more common meaning of := in Algol-family languages (Pascal, Ada, etc). ... and then there's Go's screwed up version of Pascal-style declaration syntax... [a link to my earlier rant on this subject: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4520104 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4520104 (TL;DR: Go: "var foo, bar int"; Pascal: "var foo, bar : int"; the colon vastly improves readability, and has no real drawback)]
    - dualogy 14y ago
      > the colon vastly improves readability We have gofmt for that :)
      - snogglethorpe 14y ago
        > > the colon vastly improves readability > We have gofmt for that :) Er, what? gofmt doesn't improve the readability of declarations at all... [there's really not much it can do]
        dualogy 14y ago
        It spaces them evenly if you have multiple subsequent lines of them. Readable enough: var ( i, j int foobarStuff string bebop bool ) What's not readable?
        snogglethorpe 14y ago
rorrr 14y ago
I used to write Pascal a decade ago. Does it still have endless begin-end statements?
- nestoras 14y ago
  Does C++ still have endless opening and closing braces? :)
jevinskie 14y ago
I was very impressed when I found out that Pascal supports subrange types (that is types with custom, user-defined ranges). I had only seen it in VHDL / Ada before, where I found it to be very useful.
- nestoras 14y ago
  Yes, that has been a feature of the original Pascal design, since the 1970s. Very useful for catching out of range errors.
sehugg 14y ago
I used Delphi for a 16-bit Windows game ages ago. However I skipped all of the UI builder stuff (which is the primary reason you'd want to use it in the first place) and coded directly against the Windows API, with the help of some inline asm. So why not just use C? There were good reasons. In 1992 C/C++ compilers on the PC were slow -- pre-compiled headers were still mysterious -- and Delphi's handwritten compiler and integrated linker made the edit/compile/run cycle very very fast. It made small, fast, completely stand-alone (no MSVCRT.DLL or anything) binaries -- a feature which still supposedly makes it popular with malware authors. The UI builder was excellent and perfect for knocking off one-off tools like the terrain generator described above. As long as you stuck to Windows, of course. I don't know if I would necessarily go back though. While I sometimes miss some of Pascal's features like ranged types and sets (and bounds checking on arrays) the performance advantages of the specific Borland implementation have become less important, and there are other contenders that cover a bigger problem space than the delta between Pascal and C. BTW, here's where Google Trends says Delphi is popular nowadays: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=delphi&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=delphi&cmpt=q
e12e 14y ago
I did a course on object pascal in 2002 (just before that college, like many others, switched to java). A few months ago, I had a look at Ada, and found it pleasantly similar to object pascal. If you've played with pascal, but not with Ada, I recommend having a look :-) Eg: http://blogs.fsfe.org/thomaslocke/2013/02/10/using-the-ada-web-server-aws-part-1/ http://blogs.fsfe.org/thomaslocke/2013/02/10/using-the-ada-w...
knutae 14y ago
After using Delphi professionally for some years, I pretty much hated it. Some of my least favorite features are automatic and locale-dependent string/WideString conversions, and that there are multiple memory models: interfaces (IUnknown) uses reference counting, TComponent is owner-based, and lots of other classes require manual memory management. On the other hand, the object system has some nice features. I miss AfterConstruction and BeforeDestruction in other languages, and I like virtual constructors.

nestoras 14y ago

Thank you and I completely agree! I hold VCL especially in very high regard. As for Delphi, I think it doesn't get nearly the mindshare it deserves. As a side note, the CAD software we're making in my company is entirely written in Delphi (with some bits in assembly): http://www.anadelta.com/index-en.php?s=exported http://www.anadelta.com/index-en.php?s=exported You may recognize the sky :)

Tloewald 14y ago

I think there's a lot of low profile software out there written in Delphi which doesn't get mentioned because it's not a reason to buy, and may be a reason not to buy. There's a nice windows installer tool I occasionally use written in Delphi.

aubergene 14y ago

I found some pleasant similarities between Pascal and Go (Golang)

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
What are they, aside from just := and the lack of brackets?
- jbarham 14y ago
  Go's declaration syntax (http://golang.org/doc/articles/gos_declaration_syntax.html http://golang.org/doc/articles/gos_declaration_syntax.html) and package system are inspired by the Pascal family, according to the FAQ (http://golang.org/doc/faq#ancestors http://golang.org/doc/faq#ancestors).
- snogglethorpe 14y ago
  Actually Go's use of := is almost anti-pascal: it means something rather different, but similar enough to be confusing, and so is likely to confuse anybody who's used to the vastly more common meaning of := in Algol-family languages (Pascal, Ada, etc). ... and then there's Go's screwed up version of Pascal-style declaration syntax... [a link to my earlier rant on this subject: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4520104 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4520104 (TL;DR: Go: "var foo, bar int"; Pascal: "var foo, bar : int"; the colon vastly improves readability, and has no real drawback)]
  - dualogy 14y ago
    > the colon vastly improves readability We have gofmt for that :)
    - snogglethorpe 14y ago
      > > the colon vastly improves readability > We have gofmt for that :) Er, what? gofmt doesn't improve the readability of declarations at all... [there's really not much it can do]
      - dualogy 14y ago
        It spaces them evenly if you have multiple subsequent lines of them. Readable enough: var ( i, j int foobarStuff string bebop bool ) What's not readable?
        snogglethorpe 14y ago

rorrr 14y ago

I used to write Pascal a decade ago. Does it still have endless begin-end statements?

nestoras 14y ago
Does C++ still have endless opening and closing braces? :)

jevinskie 14y ago

I was very impressed when I found out that Pascal supports subrange types (that is types with custom, user-defined ranges). I had only seen it in VHDL / Ada before, where I found it to be very useful.

nestoras 14y ago
Yes, that has been a feature of the original Pascal design, since the 1970s. Very useful for catching out of range errors.

sehugg 14y ago

I used Delphi for a 16-bit Windows game ages ago. However I skipped all of the UI builder stuff (which is the primary reason you'd want to use it in the first place) and coded directly against the Windows API, with the help of some inline asm. So why not just use C? There were good reasons. In 1992 C/C++ compilers on the PC were slow -- pre-compiled headers were still mysterious -- and Delphi's handwritten compiler and integrated linker made the edit/compile/run cycle very very fast. It made small, fast, completely stand-alone (no MSVCRT.DLL or anything) binaries -- a feature which still supposedly makes it popular with malware authors. The UI builder was excellent and perfect for knocking off one-off tools like the terrain generator described above. As long as you stuck to Windows, of course. I don't know if I would necessarily go back though. While I sometimes miss some of Pascal's features like ranged types and sets (and bounds checking on arrays) the performance advantages of the specific Borland implementation have become less important, and there are other contenders that cover a bigger problem space than the delta between Pascal and C. BTW, here's where Google Trends says Delphi is popular nowadays: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=delphi&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=delphi&cmpt=q

e12e 14y ago

I did a course on object pascal in 2002 (just before that college, like many others, switched to java). A few months ago, I had a look at Ada, and found it pleasantly similar to object pascal. If you've played with pascal, but not with Ada, I recommend having a look :-) Eg: http://blogs.fsfe.org/thomaslocke/2013/02/10/using-the-ada-web-server-aws-part-1/ http://blogs.fsfe.org/thomaslocke/2013/02/10/using-the-ada-w...

knutae 14y ago

After using Delphi professionally for some years, I pretty much hated it. Some of my least favorite features are automatic and locale-dependent string/WideString conversions, and that there are multiple memory models: interfaces (IUnknown) uses reference counting, TComponent is owner-based, and lots of other classes require manual memory management. On the other hand, the object system has some nice features. I miss AfterConstruction and BeforeDestruction in other languages, and I like virtual constructors.