5 ms·

Nimrod: The Return of Pascal

71 points by rohshall 13y ago

RobAley 13y ago
Lazarus and Free Pascal have been around for an age, likewise Delphi for even longer. And they're all still here. Pascal adoption may have slowed, but it has always been here and no "return" is necessary. Nice project though.
- eli 13y ago
  Wow, I knew about Lazarus but I didn't realize there were still new versions of Delphi coming out. Anyone used it recently? Delphi got me my first paying programming jobs. I remember when later versions came bundled with Delphi 1.0 so you could still build 16-bit applications with it :)
  - JasonFruit 13y ago
    Recent releases of Delphi have been troubled and a bit directionless; it seems like Embarcadero, the current owners, are understaffed or incapable, and they seem scattered and unable to make consistent strategic decisions.
    - eli 13y ago
      Bummer, but not too surprising. I was puzzled by some of the decisions they made back in the Inprise years.
    - dodyg 13y ago
      Aren't they targeting native Android, IoS, Mac and Windows now?
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - mirkoadari 13y ago
    Delphi is pretty neat for rapid user interface development. If I'm not mistaken then Skype Windows client is based on Delphi.
  - telephonetemp 13y ago
    How fast are they compared to Delphi? Fast compiling was definitely one of Delphi's main selling points back in the day.
roadster72 13y ago
Not sure if this will really help improve the adoption rates for Pascal.
networked 13y ago
Previous discussion of this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6316536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6316536. A longer thread about Nimrod: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6272600 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6272600.
vidarh 13y ago
"Pascal" in this context seems to be "static typing with bounds checking" along with a handful of superficial syntactic similarities (but far more differences). You could substitute "Pascal" with a substantial subset of Algol-like languages and the comparison would make just as much (or little) sense.
- drdaeman 13y ago
  As about bounds checking, unfortunately, there aren't many languages with dependent typing. (And Nimrod lacks them too.) I mean, it's frustrating when a program suddenly fails at runtime. Especially when it can be proved at compile time that values won't (actually, can't) get out of bounds.
michaelfeathers 13y ago
In a world with maps and folds do new languages really need for-loops? They seem like putting goto into a language as a fallback for uncommon performance cases and people who don't have the hang of higher order functions. In particular, I don't like the fact the for-loops are often used in first examples. I had that issue when I looked at tutorials for D and Go for the first time. My initial reaction was "Seriously?"
- saejox 13y ago
  An imperative language that aims to replace C/C++ ? Why would functional programming examples belong to front page.
- mercurial 13y ago
  I don't know about D, but I don't think Go has map and other functional combinators, due to lack of generics. Besides, the world has had map and fold for a long time now, and this has not prevented for loops and iterators.
- thinkpad20 13y ago
  Loops have their place: in imperative languages, they allow you to very naturally express a series of instructions, which are of course what imperative languages are meant to express in the first place. By the same token, loops aren't really of much use in functional languages, if they're supported at all, unless the language also supports destructive update (and therefore has imperative features). One can debate the merits of imperative vs. functional programming, but there's no reason to avoid for-loops as a natural expression within the imperative paradigm. One thing I like about python loops, which CoffeeScript and Ruby, and apparently Nimrod, have adopted as well, is that they make you iterate over a data structure, rather than the C-style of providing start, finish, and step. Iterating over a data structure provides a better guarantee that the loop will terminate without errors (whereas, in Java for example, you could fall off the end of a linked list or an array if you're not careful about your ending test or update step). This ends up being conceptually similar to a map, which is how Ruby's each method works anyway.
  - 13y ago

71 points by rohshall 13y ago

Lazarus and Free Pascal have been around for an age, likewise Delphi for even longer. And they're all still here. Pascal adoption may have slowed, but it has always been here and no "return" is necessary. Nice project though.

eli 13y ago
Wow, I knew about Lazarus but I didn't realize there were still new versions of Delphi coming out. Anyone used it recently? Delphi got me my first paying programming jobs. I remember when later versions came bundled with Delphi 1.0 so you could still build 16-bit applications with it :)
- JasonFruit 13y ago
  Recent releases of Delphi have been troubled and a bit directionless; it seems like Embarcadero, the current owners, are understaffed or incapable, and they seem scattered and unable to make consistent strategic decisions.
  - eli 13y ago
    Bummer, but not too surprising. I was puzzled by some of the decisions they made back in the Inprise years.
  - dodyg 13y ago
    Aren't they targeting native Android, IoS, Mac and Windows now?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- mirkoadari 13y ago
  Delphi is pretty neat for rapid user interface development. If I'm not mistaken then Skype Windows client is based on Delphi.
- telephonetemp 13y ago
  How fast are they compared to Delphi? Fast compiling was definitely one of Delphi's main selling points back in the day.

roadster72 13y ago

Not sure if this will really help improve the adoption rates for Pascal.

networked 13y ago

Previous discussion of this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6316536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6316536. A longer thread about Nimrod: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6272600 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6272600.

vidarh 13y ago

"Pascal" in this context seems to be "static typing with bounds checking" along with a handful of superficial syntactic similarities (but far more differences). You could substitute "Pascal" with a substantial subset of Algol-like languages and the comparison would make just as much (or little) sense.

drdaeman 13y ago
As about bounds checking, unfortunately, there aren't many languages with dependent typing. (And Nimrod lacks them too.) I mean, it's frustrating when a program suddenly fails at runtime. Especially when it can be proved at compile time that values won't (actually, can't) get out of bounds.

michaelfeathers 13y ago

In a world with maps and folds do new languages really need for-loops? They seem like putting goto into a language as a fallback for uncommon performance cases and people who don't have the hang of higher order functions. In particular, I don't like the fact the for-loops are often used in first examples. I had that issue when I looked at tutorials for D and Go for the first time. My initial reaction was "Seriously?"

saejox 13y ago
An imperative language that aims to replace C/C++ ? Why would functional programming examples belong to front page.
mercurial 13y ago
I don't know about D, but I don't think Go has map and other functional combinators, due to lack of generics. Besides, the world has had map and fold for a long time now, and this has not prevented for loops and iterators.
thinkpad20 13y ago
Loops have their place: in imperative languages, they allow you to very naturally express a series of instructions, which are of course what imperative languages are meant to express in the first place. By the same token, loops aren't really of much use in functional languages, if they're supported at all, unless the language also supports destructive update (and therefore has imperative features). One can debate the merits of imperative vs. functional programming, but there's no reason to avoid for-loops as a natural expression within the imperative paradigm. One thing I like about python loops, which CoffeeScript and Ruby, and apparently Nimrod, have adopted as well, is that they make you iterate over a data structure, rather than the C-style of providing start, finish, and step. Iterating over a data structure provides a better guarantee that the loop will terminate without errors (whereas, in Java for example, you could fall off the end of a linked list or an array if you're not careful about your ending test or update step). This ends up being conceptually similar to a map, which is how Ruby's each method works anyway.
- 13y ago