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

[Daniël Mantione]

Op Sun, 25 Feb 2007, schreef Tom Verhoeff:

> On Tue, Feb 20, 2007 at 02:00:27PM +0100, Daniël Mantione wrote:
> > 
> > Op Tue, 20 Feb 2007, schreef Aavani at iust.ac.ir:
> > 
> > > In the ACM-ICPC International Collegiate Programming Contest dropped pascal
> > > for this year final competitions and for next year, the students are not
> > > allowed to use pascal as their programming language. Did you know this? What
> > > is your idea? Also, in TopCoder site, you can not develop your programs with
> > > Pascal while as I know, Pascal has all the properties that C++ or JAVA have.
> > > 
> > > Any idea? Is there any technical problem with Pascal to be used in TopCoder's
> > > contest?
> > 
> > I saw this coming for a few years. Free Pascal has most definately been 
> > able to delay this for a few years, it was the de facto standard in 
> > competitions in recent years. But the trend was there. When I  
> > participated myself the amount of people using Pascal was in decline, 
> > usually in the end it were two teams of 50 or so who used Pascal.
> 
> I have been ICPC "Super Regional Director" for Europe for a number
> of years around the year 2000 (in 1999 we hosted the World Finals in
> Eindhoven).  As a member of the ICPC Steering Committee I have always
> lobbied for Pascal.  (But I must say that I have never been able to
> fully grasp the operation of this Steering Committee.)
> 
> > 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.
> 
> This is very true.  What is also very important, practically, is having
> Pascal supporters and experts on the "jury" (both of Regional Contests
> and the World Finals).
> 
> > The only fix here is to strengthen our position in education. Most people 
> > today participate in Java, which is silly as it puts you in a clear 
> > disadvantage. ...
> 
> Again, very true.  But this will not be easy (discussion should
> continue in another thread)...
> 
> > 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.
> 
> Once again, a sore point, indeed.  The IDE is an issue, especially
> for "beginners".  Personally, I have been very happy to use vi(m) under
> contest conditions.

Indeed, but we need to make it so that the decision IDE 
versus Vi should be a no-brainer. Back in the Dos days this was the case.
This is something we still need to work and improve uppon.

> > Perhaps we should ask Tom Verhoeff, he is very involved in the icpc's.
> 
> Tom used to be very involved.  I had to make a choice, and after the
> World Finals in 1999, I decided to focus on the International Olympiad
> in Informatics (IOI: for high school students).  I am no longer in
> the ICPC Steering Committee, though I have been on the jury of
> the North-West European Regional Contest in 2005 and 2006.
> 
> In the IOI, Pascal is still a "major" language.  Demand comes especially
> from Central and Eastern Europe, and parts of Asia.  The IOI has stayed
> away from Java, mainly for technical reasons, but this is creating
> more and more problems.  Algorithms/programming education around the
> world seems to have fallen for Java, both for high school and for the
> bachelor level at university.

Good to hear that. Do you see any problems coming on the Pascal side?
We might be limited in our options on the political side, but on the 
technical side we might be able to remove a few arguments out of the hands 
of Java advocates.

> Good, up-to-date, teaching material for Object Pascal is lacking.

I'm aware of it. The Hungarian book (www.computerbooks.hu/FreePascal) 
seems to be good teaching material. More material like this could give 
Pascal a good boost.

> Oh, and before I forget: C++ has STL, and Java comes with numerous
> packages.  These are very powerful tools in the hands of skilled
> programmers.  FPC does have FCL, but (a) it is not well-known, (b)
> it is not sufficiently complete.

b) Can be solved in the short term if desired. a) is a more long term 
problem. Certainly, there are good Delphi books out there, but Delphi 
books seldomly are algorithm oriented :/
 
> To round this off: we are overhauling our CS curriculum, and fortunately
> there is a small core of Pascal supporters.  Personally, I favor
> FPC/Lazarus, some others still believe in Delphi.  Maybe we will
> produce some new Pascal material that could find wider usage.  (Food
> for another thread.)

I don't mind loosing to Delphi; after all everyone who learns Pascal
is a potential FPC user. We need also to see what Codegear is going to do, 
it looks like their are going to transform their Turbo editions into 
packages for beginners, which would be a very good thing.

> To summarize the needs:
> 
>   *  Tools: contest-friendly IDE; STL-like library
>   *  Teaching: Course material, tutorials (make Pascal a wanted language)
>   *  People: Supportive jury members

Check.

> It would be nice to have some (former) contestants contribute to FPC
> to make it a compelling contest language.

I'm all for it.

Greetings,

Daniël Mantione