[fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

[Florian Klaempfl]

Jamie McCracken wrote:

> Marc Weustink wrote:
> 
>>
>>
>> What is easier to read is a matter of taste.
>> Being a pascal devel for years now, it takes time to "decode" a  "a := b
>> := c := d := 0"  line. There might be a ; inbeween which results in a
>> complete different assignment. With such lines I've to read them over and
>> over to see what is going on.
>> Where a line like "a := 0; b := 0; c := 0; d := 0;" is clear to me.
>> This also counts for the proposed c-isms.
>>
>> For me I prefere clarity above less typing (besides if you want to write
>> realy short code, you sould use APL)
>>
> 
> I totally agree with you in this case - we dont want or need cryptic c
> stlye syntax in any version of Pascal.
> 
> However, in general Pascal has poor developer productivity when compared
> to modern languages like python and C#. 

I'am a poor delphi programmer, didn't use it for years, but I bet with any
python programmer that I create any application faster than him :)

> Ironically python is perhaps the
> most popular language on Linux and most of its syntax is derived from
> object pascal whereas pascal 

Well, I wonder which languages the kernel, X windows, GNOME, KDE, OpenOffice,
Mozilla etc. use ;), definitively not python ... Python is a usuable scripting
language but nothing more.

> on linux is virtually non-existant. 

The problem with pascal on linux was/is that there was no good compiler in the
90s for linux so a lot developers got lost.

> Of
> course Python is piss poor in both performance and memory usage but it
> does point the way to a revitalised pascal. Adopting less verbose but
> still clean and clear syntax ala python is IMHO the way to make Pascal
> great again.

I wonder if Python couldn't revive Fortran with it's strange formatting rules.

> 
> Consider the developer unfirendly nature of pascal/Delphi atm:
> 
> 1) Forward declarations - they sux! Why should the developers have the
> burden of making the code totally sequential declaration wise. All other
> modern compilers dont need this. 

C++ is still the number one language and it requires it.

> Sure your code might take a bit longer
> to compile but thats peanuts compare to the time saved in extra typing
> and reordering your code

Did you ever work in a team? Then you know why ordering declarations is a good
practice because reading non sequential declarations is hard.

> 
> 2) I have touched on manual memory managaement of tobjects before so I
> wont rehash it here (in summary ref count tobjects and they should have
> good performance with c++ style exception handling).

Good performance like python ;)?