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Geek Culture / Free Pascal - any good?

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M00NSHiNE
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Location: England, UK
Posted: 11th Apr 2004 15:58
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Ive been looking at free pascal (http:/www.freepascal.org) and it looks really good as a step up from Basic. Pascal is also still taught in colleges in England, I was talking to my cousin the other day who is doing a computing course using Pascal. Anyway, has anybody used it as it seems to have a lot of functionality and it looks great, especially since its free.

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empty
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Posted: 11th Apr 2004 16:12
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Yeah it's very good, still in develpment, though.
Once that Lazarus thingy is finished or at least usable (the "visual" part), it'll be a serious competitor for Delphi- epsecially because it's cross-platform.

Me, I'll sit and write this love song as I all too seldom do
build a little fire this midnight. It's good to be back home with you.
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M00NSHiNE
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Posted: 11th Apr 2004 16:19
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Excellent... I think I'll give it a go when my system is up and running again. Having little experience with Pascal, what do you recommend to help learn the language?

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M00NSHiNE
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Posted: 11th Apr 2004 17:22
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And another thing - the compiler GPL and runtime library LGPL liscencing. What does ths mean exactly. Its unclear as there isnt a proper description on the site.

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MicroMan
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Posted: 11th Apr 2004 18:16
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Object Pascal is a very good alternative when you want to move up from Basic. It's nearly as powerful as C++, but not at all as difficult to learn.

Now, I don't know that much about Free Pascal. I'm using Delphi. You CAN get Delphi cheap, if you want the VCL-library and the IDE. It costs $99 for the personal edition of Delphi 7.

The VCL is great because it's native Pascal, and not ActiveX. And there's lots of it. But then again, Free Pascal is free, so...

But anyway, Object Pascal ( is to Pascal what C++ is to C, really) is great.

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M00NSHiNE
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Posted: 11th Apr 2004 18:19
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Object Pascal.... never heard of that, how much is it and what can it do?(Can it make .dlls etc)

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MicroMan
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Posted: 11th Apr 2004 18:31 Edited at: 11th Apr 2004 18:33
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Free Pascal, Delphi is object Pascal. So that's what you're considering. Pascal is like C today, still around, but most people use and implement the Objekt Pascal variant these days.

And yes, you make make apps, dlls, activex, components, classes, and whatever you desire really. As said, it's nearly as powerful as C++. What you can do with C++ you can do with Object Pascal. Only, of course, without tearing your hair out in frustration first.

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M00NSHiNE
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Posted: 11th Apr 2004 18:35
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Fantastic - just what Im looking for. Cant realy afford Delphi so Im gonna go with Free Pascal then. Thanks for the info MicroMan.

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empty
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Posted: 11th Apr 2004 20:40
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Quote: "the compiler GPL and runtime library LGPL liscencing. What does ths mean exactly. Its unclear as there isnt a proper description on the site."

A very, very brief and incomplete discription:
The compiler (GPL):
You are not allowed to distribute the compiler commercially and/or in compiled form only.
The RTL (LPGL):
You may distribute the RTL compiled and commercially, but if you've changed the source you must make these changes available.

Most important, you can distribute anything produced with the Freepascal compiler in whatever way you want (as stated by the lead programmer of FP).

Me, I'll sit and write this love song as I all too seldom do
build a little fire this midnight. It's good to be back home with you.
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M00NSHiNE
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Posted: 11th Apr 2004 21:02
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Excellent - thats what I like to hear. Theres a big movement going on about software patenting in Europe at the moment and FP seems to have taken a very active role.

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Jeku
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Posted: 12th Apr 2004 00:16
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Moonshine: Just out of curiosity, why not learn C++? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you can use DirectX with Pascal. Also, Borland C++ is free from their website.

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empty
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Posted: 12th Apr 2004 00:18
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Of course you can use DirectX with Pascal (very easily with Delphi, it's a bit more complicated in FP).

Me, I'll sit and write this love song as I all too seldom do
build a little fire this midnight. It's good to be back home with you.
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Jeku
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Posted: 12th Apr 2004 00:24
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Wow, you learn something new everyday!

Well I could see myself learning Pascal to save some frustration and grey hair, but I don't want to forget C++ for when I use it at work. It's kind of a double-edged sword.

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MicroMan
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Posted: 12th Apr 2004 00:42
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I don't want to rain on anybody's parade, but I do have to caution that Object Pascal, whether in the FP or the delphi flavor, is more difficult to grasp than say VB6.

One still has to learn about classes, objects, inheritance, polymorphism of OOP as well as more advanced WinAPI related things. You'll not be as shielded from the WinAPI as you are in, say, VB. I don't know about FP but VCL in Delphi does wrap a lot of functions for manipulating the API, though.

Power increaseth complexity. Complexity increaseth power. The quote of the day.

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They SAID that given enough time a million monkeys with typewriters could recreate the collected works of William Shakespeare... Internet sure proved them wrong.
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empty
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Posted: 12th Apr 2004 05:38
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Quote: "I don't know about FP but VCL in Delphi does wrap a lot of functions for manipulating the API, though."

There is the Lazarus project for FP which sort of emulates Delphi's Visual components library (or actually CLX). It's in a very early stage and currently produces 4MB+ executables (you can tweak that, though), that behave unpredictable sometimes. But it's getting better...

I think ObjectPascal is a very good way to get in touch with OOP. Plus you can do everything the "procedural way" as well.

Me, I'll sit and write this love song as I all too seldom do
build a little fire this midnight. It's good to be back home with you.
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M00NSHiNE
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Posted: 12th Apr 2004 16:46
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Jeku: I simply dont have the time to learn C++

Plus Ive made up my mind to learn FP now, so does anyone recommend and good books or resources for learning Pascal?

P.S. MicriMan, you have to get past the BASIC way of doing things at some point, this seems as good a way as any

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the desktops
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Posted: 12th Apr 2004 20:03
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Wow, there's a free pascal!!! Well it's time for me to learn how to use pascal.

Soul Shooter Online
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MicroMan
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Posted: 13th Apr 2004 00:27
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@Moonshine

Just as you don't have any illussions that it will be a walk in the park. It probably won't be. But if you know Basic, Object Pascal will be easy to get into. Most of the commands are the same, and only slightly different. You just have to think a bit differently.

Simple apps are simple to do, but when you want to do something more clever, then you'll have to advance in your programming skills. I'm doing an internet app right now, and it's a tricky on, and there's a few tufts of hair on my desk. But not because of the language.

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They SAID that given enough time a million monkeys with typewriters could recreate the collected works of William Shakespeare... Internet sure proved them wrong.
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MushroomHead
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Posted: 13th Apr 2004 12:56 Edited at: 13th Apr 2004 12:57
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Quote: "
Plus Ive made up my mind to learn FP now, so does anyone recommend and good books or resources for learning Pascal?
"


The full archive (25.1MB or the 33.1MB one) comes with 4 Adobe PDF manuals including a reference manual and programmer's manual ... that should be more then enough for you to get started on.
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