[fpc-pascal] Any command line interpreters for Free Pascal?

[Andrew Pennebaker]

How do you write scripts? With a text editor? Then you don't have a debugger
at hand, no syntax highlighting, etc. And this lets you write code quick?
Not for me.


There may be a language barrier here. When I say "text editor", I mean
something like vi, Emacs, TextMate, Eclipse. Syntax highlighting and code
completion are often a given.

No debugger at hand? An interpreter *is* a debugger.

Sorry, but you might have to learn proper software development skills...


The final result of a project may be compiled code, but that doesn't mean we
are restricted from using an interpreted environment to develop that code.
You can use the same tools + an interpreter. That's an extra tool for
software development, not the only one. If you don't like using instantfpc,
you don't have to. But if you do, it would be nice if fpc played nicely with
instantfpc-enabled code.

Scripting tools/languages have their purpose, compiled
languages/environments have theirs.


Aye, scripting language and compiled languages often serve different
purposes, but that doesn't mean they have to. You can write shell scripts in
Haskell and compile executables in Ruby. Interpreted languages compile code
in the background, so the difference is superficial.

Forcing some clutches of some scripting languages onto a compiled language
just doesn't make sense, you are just promoting software bloat at it's best.


Yes, software bloat is to be avoided. In the simplest terms, I'm asking for
fpc to consider shebangs as comments. That little syntactical addition
wouldn't bloat fpc by much at all, but it would allow the same code to be
compiled by fans of fpc, and interpreted by fans of instantfpc.

The current situation forces coders to decide "I'm going to write compiled
code" or "I'm going to write interpreted code." That's kind of sad, because
when you do want to use fpc, you don't want to go through a friend's code
and manually remove his shebangs. By adding shebang comments, fpc would be
able to run instantfpc programs. This feature unites programmers, it doesn't
divide them.

Cheers,

Andrew Pennebaker
www.yellosoft.us

On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 1:21 PM, Ralf A. Quint <FreeDOS at gmx.net> wrote:

> At 09:30 AM 10/15/2011, Andrew Pennebaker wrote:
>
>> Indeed, compiled programs will always run faster than interpreted
>> programs. The value in scripting is that an interpreted environment allows
>> coders to rapidly go through write code / test code loops. Interpreters let
>> you explore your own codebase, like gdb but far more powerful.
>>
>
> Sorry, but you might have to learn proper software development skills...
> And learn to use the right tool for a task. Scripting tools/languages have
> their purpose, compiled languages/environments have theirs.
> Forcing some clutches of some scripting languages onto a compiled language
> just doesn't make sense, you are just promoting software bloat at it's best.
> Why use a multi-megabyte compiler to shuffle around more megabytes of data
> to compile a more or less small script each time it is run instead of using
> a more appropriate and efficient tool...
>
>
>  Finally, adding scripting capability to a programming language allows
>> coders to use a language to be used for shell scripts. If you love Pascal,
>> you might want to write sysadmin tools in Pascal to automate your workflow.
>>
>
> Actually I do, and that all without the whole shebang...
>
> Ralf
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