To be honest, long ago somewhere deep down I liked Free Pascal, but there were issues making it quite clumsy for rapid development. I haven't re-examined it lately, but I doubt it's more convenient than Python / PyQT combo for when I need to hurry. For fancy stuff C++ / QT take the cake.
You haven't re-examined it? Watch the video. All those apps demoed were written with Lazarus. I'm not sure what clumsiness you had many years ago, but the language supports constructs such as generic programming with type constraints, iterators and enumerators, user definable conversions, value types with properties methods and events, extension methods, and more. And the compiler isn't buggy in the slightest, unlike Delphi.
I've seen the video, but to form any opinion I'd need to spend a few hours at least. I'll try to take a look if I have a free weekend.
Clumsiness as in "a lot of code to accomplish a simple thing". I dislike Java because of this too. Reasons are pretty simple - I'm lazy, and more lines of code => more places for a bug.
What I have to admit about Free Pascal, is that it's very logical. Something that's missing in recently pushed swift. Once you start to understand its design principles everything looks reasonable.
Well, I used lisp dialects (clisp and scheme in particular) a while ago, but never for anything user-interfacing. User interaction, from what I remember was considered something "impure", as side-effect based operations interfered with the strictly functional approach.
I'm tempted to learn Haskell, but that will require some time.
I'm amazed at how well Laz runs on really old machines. I got an old Dell Latitude a while ago (it's from around '99 or '00) and initially tried to install Linux on it but it just wasn't beefy enough memory wise (I think it's got 128 MB RAM), so I pulled out an old copy of Win2k, patched it all up with official and unofficial service packs and was pleasantly surprised that the latest version of Lazarus installed on it.
Desktop applications are dead, web apps are where it's at. Cover all devices and operating systems at once, free version with basic functionality and limited saving storage while a pro version has additional features and unlimited storage. Access content from anywhere.
9 comments
1 u/RayLomas 11 Feb 2016 08:52
Lazarus...? What year is it?
To be honest, long ago somewhere deep down I liked Free Pascal, but there were issues making it quite clumsy for rapid development. I haven't re-examined it lately, but I doubt it's more convenient than Python / PyQT combo for when I need to hurry. For fancy stuff C++ / QT take the cake.
5 u/sysrpl [OP] 11 Feb 2016 09:35
You haven't re-examined it? Watch the video. All those apps demoed were written with Lazarus. I'm not sure what clumsiness you had many years ago, but the language supports constructs such as generic programming with type constraints, iterators and enumerators, user definable conversions, value types with properties methods and events, extension methods, and more. And the compiler isn't buggy in the slightest, unlike Delphi.
6 u/RayLomas 11 Feb 2016 09:50
I've seen the video, but to form any opinion I'd need to spend a few hours at least. I'll try to take a look if I have a free weekend.
Clumsiness as in "a lot of code to accomplish a simple thing". I dislike Java because of this too. Reasons are pretty simple - I'm lazy, and more lines of code => more places for a bug.
What I have to admit about Free Pascal, is that it's very logical. Something that's missing in recently pushed swift. Once you start to understand its design principles everything looks reasonable.
2 u/rhabarba 11 Feb 2016 09:54
For rapid development, I suggest you to give Lisp a try. It even has Qt bindings.
1 u/RayLomas 11 Feb 2016 11:30
Well, I used lisp dialects (clisp and scheme in particular) a while ago, but never for anything user-interfacing. User interaction, from what I remember was considered something "impure", as side-effect based operations interfered with the strictly functional approach.
I'm tempted to learn Haskell, but that will require some time.
1 u/Crashmarik 11 Feb 2016 09:01
It's a pretty good alternative if you don't want to part with the bucks for Delphi. If you have the money, Delphi's productivity can't be beat.
1 u/raydeen 11 Feb 2016 21:25
I'm amazed at how well Laz runs on really old machines. I got an old Dell Latitude a while ago (it's from around '99 or '00) and initially tried to install Linux on it but it just wasn't beefy enough memory wise (I think it's got 128 MB RAM), so I pulled out an old copy of Win2k, patched it all up with official and unofficial service packs and was pleasantly surprised that the latest version of Lazarus installed on it.
0 u/rhabarba 11 Feb 2016 09:56
I wish I had more time to spend it with Delphi/Pascal. There are quite a few desktop applications I'd love to develop in it.
-1 u/GoodGodKirk 11 Feb 2016 11:23
Desktop applications are dead, web apps are where it's at. Cover all devices and operating systems at once, free version with basic functionality and limited saving storage while a pro version has additional features and unlimited storage. Access content from anywhere.