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FPC 3.2 Pascal Compiler Released In 2020 - Even Adds Windows 3.0 16-bit Support

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  • #11
    Man I remember learning Pascal in highschool on really old apple hardware. Wrote my first game on that... Xs & Os.... yah it was nothing huge. Went from that to Java. Now its pretty much all python after a brief stint with C.

    The good news out of this, is Windows 3.0 is probably the most secure dev environment ever these days... especially when run on a 486 DX2!

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    • #12
      Well. Whatever else you say about FPC (and Lazarus), when you need to whip up quick multiplatform code including GUIs, it has it's place. Yeah, you could use Python too but FPC isn't interpreted and will compile very quick. When you have GTK self-contained in binary, running your whip-up doesn't need much in the way of hard dependencies either.

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      • #13
        Originally posted by aht0 View Post
        Well. Whatever else you say about FPC (and Lazarus), when you need to whip up quick multiplatform code including GUIs, it has it's place. Yeah, you could use Python too but FPC isn't interpreted and will compile very quick. When you have GTK self-contained in binary, running your whip-up doesn't need much in the way of hard dependencies either.
        This is what I use for exactly the purpose you mention.
        And the great thing is there are no gtk dependencies.

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        • #14
          Originally posted by edwaleni View Post
          A round of memories for Borland's Delphi and its translation of Object Pascal. Where is Anders Hejlsberg anyway, Mr Turbo Pascal?
          He moved on to create C# and the acompanying Visual Studio parts. Ever wondered why C# felt so good and why the UI designer was so awesome? Yep, because it basically was Delphi. Unfortunately many people sh*t on Delphi/Pascal but praise C#.

          Then again, Delphi itself stuck in some weird backwards thinking. No proper support for the community and no real interest in cross plaform. They bought the one good cross platform solution (FireMonkey) which supported FPC as well and turned it into Delphi-only. Delphi itself only runs on Windows. I am so glad I jumped ship after Delphi 7 and went with Lazarus instead.

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          • #15
            Originally posted by Raka555 View Post

            This is what I use for exactly the purpose you mention.
            And the great thing is there are no gtk dependencies.

            https://ecere.org/overview/
            Looks nice but seems to use custom rendering. What sets Lazarus (and the LCL - Lazarus Component Library) apart is, that they map the controls and functions to the underlying native libraries. So on Windows you use Win32 API, on OSX you use Cocoa and basically everything you use GTK or QT5. If you have a platform that doesn't bring or support one of those underlying toolkits, a custom drawn interface is being worked on as well, AFAIK.

            A better comparison would be wxWidgets I guess. But I think they also don't have a proper form designer (or do they?).

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            • #16
              Originally posted by aksdb View Post

              Looks nice but seems to use custom rendering. What sets Lazarus (and the LCL - Lazarus Component Library) apart is, that they map the controls and functions to the underlying native libraries. So on Windows you use Win32 API, on OSX you use Cocoa and basically everything you use GTK or QT5. If you have a platform that doesn't bring or support one of those underlying toolkits, a custom drawn interface is being worked on as well, AFAIK.

              A better comparison would be wxWidgets I guess. But I think they also don't have a proper form designer (or do they?).
              Exactly this but there's even more to it. Lazarus brings really nice anchor and layout management abstraction that actually is better than most native toolkits provide by themselves. The best part is it's unified accross them and any missing functionality in the layout is added by the abstraction layer (the LCL). I'm really surprised nothing else like this is out there, wxWidgets is similar but quite far behind.

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              • #17
                Originally posted by aksdb View Post

                He moved on to create C# and the acompanying Visual Studio parts. Ever wondered why C# felt so good and why the UI designer was so awesome? Yep, because it basically was Delphi. Unfortunately many people sh*t on Delphi/Pascal but praise C#.

                Then again, Delphi itself stuck in some weird backwards thinking. No proper support for the community and no real interest in cross plaform. They bought the one good cross platform solution (FireMonkey) which supported FPC as well and turned it into Delphi-only. Delphi itself only runs on Windows. I am so glad I jumped ship after Delphi 7 and went with Lazarus instead.
                It's not "backwards thinking", it's it's owners (Embarcadero). My impression is, owners want to milk as much money out of it as possible. Licenses are rather expensive, free Community version does exist (as free and time limited) but you are limited to bare handful of reinstalls (or up to 1 year of use) using same key and then your license has expired. One time I wrote to their support, after doing my customary regular Windows re-install and finding that my Delphi license had suddenly "expired" - they were rather unsymphatetic and refused to extend that free license.
                At some point months later I happened to see Embardcadero (probably sponsored) post in Facebook and wrote my rather pithy comment about their "free license" underneath - then they were suddenly ready to "look into it". Still refuse to go back into their trap.

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                • #18
                  Originally posted by aht0 View Post
                  It's not "backwards thinking", it's it's owners (Embarcadero). My impression is, owners want to milk as much money out of it as possible. Licenses are rather expensive, free Community version does exist (as free and time limited) [...]
                  I meant Embarcadero. And what you describe is exactly what I mean with "backwards thinking". They look back at what customers they have, what the customers do with their product, and then decide how they can squeeze the most out of those customers. That might be a nice choice if your goal is to stay afloat.
                  That is sad though, because as a language and eco system it should have the goal to grow. For that, they need a market of developers. For that, they need a community. And for that, they should offer something that the community wants.
                  If hobbyists started using Delphi to develop their iOS/Android apps and the results were mindblowing, some of them would turn into commercial products. Some of the developers could end up making technical decisions at some company/project.

                  The only thing Embarcadero is cashing in on is legacy software that is still being maintained and a few smaller software shops that consist of Delphi developers from the old days and keep it going. But the way Delphi is positioned and marketed will - IMHO - not get any kind of traction (apparently ... it's old and still barely used in comparison to Qt, Java, Xamarin, ...).

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                  • #19
                    What else you'd expect? Embarcadero is subsidiary to IDERA, Inc, which in turn is controlled 2 private equity firms. Thus Embarcadero is wholly controlled by investors - who really only care about making money.

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