[fpc-pascal] Re: Pascal is alive!!??

[Daniël Mantione]

Op Tue, 20 Feb 2007, schreef bisma at brawijaya.ac.id:

> > Note that only the *requirement* to offer a Pascal environment has been
> > scrapped, organisers of contests can still provide it if they want. So,
> > please lobby at the contest organisation for a Pascal environment.
> =

> I did lobby them since the first time they had intention to drop pascal, =
but
> they simply didn't listen to me. :P The regular online contest still allo=
ws
> pascal though, they just don't want to see pascal on the final stage. Ano=
ther
> thing that made me disappointed is they still use the old FPC v.1.0.6! Th=
ey
> didn't care even when I told them to upgrade to FPC v.2.0.2 (the last ver=
sion
> available at the time). :( =


Well, I still have many contacts in the ICPC world. It can still use them, =

but I need backup, since I already lobbied hard in the past. So please =

continue the lobby. Each year, also for the finals, each contest =

orginaising comittee decides what languages to offer. So, each year is a =

new opportinity to convince people to offer Pascal.

> > The only fix here is to strengthen our position in education. Most peop=
le
> > today participate in Java, which is silly as it puts you in a clear
> > disadvantage. I once submitted the first non-Java implementation of a
> > problem after an hour into the contest. The reference implementation of
> > the jury took 10 minutes and 60 MB of memory. My Pascal implementation
> > gave the result instantly, while using 300 kilobytes of memory. The jury
> > was totally blown away; after the contest we did investigate and it
> > turned out that Pascal text I/O versus Java text I/O was 100% responsib=
le
> > for the difference.
> =

> Absolutely correct! The funny thing is, most of top rank solutions are do=
ne
> using C or C++. Very little of them is using Java, but still they insist =
to
> allow Java! Pascal didn't do as much as C or C++ (yet) just because pascal
> isn't very popular in their community. But if we want to involve ourselve=
s in,
> I believe pascal is able to beat C or C++, as some of my friends (from
> Indonesia) did it. =


Yes, Pascal perfectly suitable for contest, and due to lower LOC counts =

preferable over C++. A problem is the STL though, C++ coders can sometimes =

take shortcuts here; while juries somehow seem tempted to forbid the use =

of units in Pascal (an issue I made myself angry about many times in the =

past).

> > In short, Pascal still rocks in contests. One thing is very important: a
> > rock solid text mode IDE under both Windows and Linux. This makes a
> > difference in a contest. FPC has never been able to live up to the Turbo
> > Pascal level here. I'd say especially the IDE in Linux was only useable
> > for people knowledged with FPC to work around the limitations.
> =

> FPC text mode IDE is indeed very good and easy to use for common programm=
ing
> purposes, both on win32 console and linux terminal. I use it all the time=
 when
> I code on remote servers. Of source you can't expect it to be as complete=
 as
> or as easy as GUI IDE like Lazarus since it works on text mode, but it do=
es
> the best thing it could for a text based IDE. =


In the past, Turbo Pascal gave people the biggest advantage, since you =

develop and debug your program a lot faster than with gcc or Java. FPC has =

never given these benefits. I've used the FPC IDE in the past, but it =

always working around the limitations of FPC IDE in xterm. Debugging with =

gdb wasn't worse than using the FPC IDE. This affects the decisions for =

teams what language to use.

Lazarus, with all its RAD stuff, is terribly in the way. I have done =

two contests with Delphi as IDE, and while it works very well, for =

this kind of development an IDE that is focussed just code really helps.
Further, few contest organizers have been installing Delphi in the past, =

but many installed the text mode IDE, so this is to focus on.

Dani=EBl