Re: [lazarus] Object pascal a Modern Language
On Sun, 5 Mar 2006 03:50:47 -0300, Flávio Etrusco [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I guess it's not so hugely useful or else someone would have contributed it already. This is much more important in Java because the String objects are constant/immutable and thus can't be This is very true I have never seen any performance problems with FPC. A StringTokenizer class could, however, be handy and it would not be very difficult to implement. Markku -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
Re: [lazarus] Object pascal a Modern Language
On Sun, 5 Mar 2006, L505 wrote: for very large strings that constantly change via concatenations. Instead of reserving memory for the ansistring to whatever amount you request, the stringbuffer type would reserve extra memory for you in a specifyable increment (256K, 128K, 20K, whatever you choose). If the string has a concatenation on queue which is larger than the increment size, then the stringbuffer allocates enough memory with overlap (several increments until it fills the need). I guess it's not so hugely useful or else someone would have contributed it already. Mmm... if that was the case I wouldn't be programming because everyone has already implemented what I'm trying to program :-) Seriously though - it would mean less calls to SetLength when doing big operations on strings. Ansistrings work fine when you are doing small random concatenations but when you do tons at once they are much slower and you must resort to the following: setlength(string, NewMaxValue); string[i]:= 'string I want to concatenate'; instead of string:= string + 'string I want to concatenate'; If it helps, we could add a function to TStrings: Function TStrings.Concatenate : String; begin end; Which would optimize the whole matter into a single 'getmem' call ? if there is interest, I can add it. It's 30 minutes of work. Michael. _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
Re: [lazarus] Object pascal a Modern Language
I guess it's not so hugely useful or else someone would have contributed it already. Mmm... if that was the case I wouldn't be programming because everyone has already implemented what I'm trying to program :-) Seriously though - it would mean less calls to SetLength when doing big operations on strings. Ansistrings work fine when you are doing small random concatenations but when you do tons at once they are much slower and you must resort to the following: setlength(string, NewMaxValue); string[i]:= 'string I want to concatenate'; instead of string:= string + 'string I want to concatenate'; If it helps, we could add a function to TStrings: Function TStrings.Concatenate : String; begin end; Which would optimize the whole matter into a single 'getmem' call ? if there is interest, I can add it. It's 30 minutes of work. Michael. But I mean if you are doing things at different times in the program: for i := 1 to 1000 DoSomestuff s:= string + string; DoOtherStuff s:= string + string; in other words.. not one big concatenation at once such as: string.concatenate(string1, string2, string3, string4); The only way I saw it possible in my mind was through a special string buffer type (or hey, even a stringbuffer class if not a true system type). With TStrings.concatenate did you mean an all at once concatenation? p.s. the reason I mention this was because I was just doing some work with my friend Tony in pascal server pages for output buffering and we were doing some benchmarks playing around with setlength calls _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
Re: [lazarus] Object pascal a Modern Language
On Sun, 5 Mar 2006, L505 wrote: I guess it's not so hugely useful or else someone would have contributed it already. Mmm... if that was the case I wouldn't be programming because everyone has already implemented what I'm trying to program :-) Seriously though - it would mean less calls to SetLength when doing big operations on strings. Ansistrings work fine when you are doing small random concatenations but when you do tons at once they are much slower and you must resort to the following: setlength(string, NewMaxValue); string[i]:= 'string I want to concatenate'; instead of string:= string + 'string I want to concatenate'; If it helps, we could add a function to TStrings: Function TStrings.Concatenate : String; begin end; Which would optimize the whole matter into a single 'getmem' call ? if there is interest, I can add it. It's 30 minutes of work. Michael. But I mean if you are doing things at different times in the program: for i := 1 to 1000 DoSomestuff s:= string + string; DoOtherStuff s:= string + string; in other words.. not one big concatenation at once such as: string.concatenate(string1, string2, string3, string4); The only way I saw it possible in my mind was through a special string buffer type (or hey, even a stringbuffer class if not a true system type). With TStrings.concatenate did you mean an all at once concatenation? All strings in the list are concatenated in one step, regardless of when they were added to the list: Sl:=TStringList.Create; for i := 1 to 1000 do begin DoSomestuff; SL.Add(SomeString); DoOtherStuff; SL.Add(SomeOtherString); end; Result:=SL.Concatenate; // This can be optimized to 1 getmem call. Michael. _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
Re: [lazarus] Object pascal a Modern Language
But I mean if you are doing things at different times in the program: for i := 1 to 1000 DoSomestuff s:= string + string; DoOtherStuff s:= string + string; in other words.. not one big concatenation at once such as: string.concatenate(string1, string2, string3, string4); The only way I saw it possible in my mind was through a special string buffer type (or hey, even a stringbuffer class if not a true system type). With TStrings.concatenate did you mean an all at once concatenation? All strings in the list are concatenated in one step, regardless of when they were added to the list: Sl:=TStringList.Create; for i := 1 to 1000 do begin DoSomestuff; SL.Add(SomeString); DoOtherStuff; SL.Add(SomeOtherString); end; Result:=SL.Concatenate; // This can be optimized to 1 getmem call. Michael. I suppose this is sort of like SetTextBuff for stringlist :) And how about if you don't have any line delimiter? i.e. a string buffer with no CRLF or LF.. does the TStrings type allow to disable the line delimiter? _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
Re: [lazarus] Object pascal a Modern Language
On Sun, 5 Mar 2006, L505 wrote: But I mean if you are doing things at different times in the program: for i := 1 to 1000 DoSomestuff s:= string + string; DoOtherStuff s:= string + string; in other words.. not one big concatenation at once such as: string.concatenate(string1, string2, string3, string4); The only way I saw it possible in my mind was through a special string buffer type (or hey, even a stringbuffer class if not a true system type). With TStrings.concatenate did you mean an all at once concatenation? All strings in the list are concatenated in one step, regardless of when they were added to the list: Sl:=TStringList.Create; for i := 1 to 1000 do begin DoSomestuff; SL.Add(SomeString); DoOtherStuff; SL.Add(SomeOtherString); end; Result:=SL.Concatenate; // This can be optimized to 1 getmem call. Michael. I suppose this is sort of like SetTextBuff for stringlist :) And how about if you don't have any line delimiter? i.e. a string buffer with no CRLF or LF.. does the TStrings type allow to disable the line delimiter? That would be the difference between 'Text' and 'Concatenate': Text adds CR/LF between the strings, 'Concatenate' would not. Michael. _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
Re: [lazarus] Object pascal a Modern Language
Sl:=TStringList.Create; for i := 1 to 1000 do begin DoSomestuff; SL.Add(SomeString); DoOtherStuff; SL.Add(SomeOtherString); end; Result:=SL.Concatenate; // This can be optimized to 1 getmem call. Michael. I suppose this is sort of like SetTextBuff for stringlist :) And how about if you don't have any line delimiter? i.e. a string buffer with no CRLF or LF.. does the TStrings type allow to disable the line delimiter? That would be the difference between 'Text' and 'Concatenate': Text adds CR/LF between the strings, 'Concatenate' would not. Michael. Oh! it has been a while since I looked into the Tstrings source code.. so you're saying that a tstrings already *IS* buffered and all you would have to do is implement concatenate function.. because buffering already exists. _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
Re: [lazarus] Object pascal a Modern Language
Matt Henley wrote: I belong to a mailing list for a defunt open source chemical process simulator (Sim42). Members of the list are now showing interest in restarting the effort. It was originally written in python which cause some speed issues. Several of the list members (including me) suggested freepascal and lazarus. The gentleman spearheading the effort sent the following and I would like to know what is the best way to respond. I do not know what features define a modern language and would like to know what points to bring up. snip... Matt, python is a very nice language. Why don't you just write the speed critical parts in C or C++. That's how everyone does it in python. There is no need to port to a language which needs 5-10 times the efford in getting things out. Just my opinion, Uwe _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
Re: [lazarus] Object pascal a Modern Language
On Sat, 4 Mar 2006, Uwe Grauer wrote: Matt Henley wrote: I belong to a mailing list for a defunt open source chemical process simulator (Sim42). Members of the list are now showing interest in restarting the effort. It was originally written in python which cause some speed issues. Several of the list members (including me) suggested freepascal and lazarus. The gentleman spearheading the effort sent the following and I would like to know what is the best way to respond. I do not know what features define a modern language and would like to know what points to bring up. snip... Matt, python is a very nice language. Why don't you just write the speed critical parts in C or C++. That's how everyone does it in python. Showing only that python isn't up to the task. Just like all these other interpreted languages: .NET, Java... It's cheating, and they all do it: falling back to compiled languaged. My message to the designers of these languages: Quit fooling around, and do things right from the start. Michael. _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
Re: [lazarus] Object pascal a Modern Language
python is a very nice language. Why don't you just write the speed critical parts in C or C++. That's how everyone does it in python. Showing only that python isn't up to the task. Just like all these other interpreted languages: .NET, Java... It's cheating, and they all do it: falling back to compiled languaged. My message to the designers of these languages: Quit fooling around, and do things right from the start. This does bring up an interesting point, why is it that more and more languages are becoming interpreted or bytecompiled ? I mean, surely the python designers could have written platform level compilers for no more difficulty than to write bytecompilers ? Heck they even got jython - compiling to the java vm so they must have had the option. Instead it offers the choices of bytecompiled or scripted. Why is source portability not enough ? Why sacrifice so much speed and power to get binary compatibility (or at least cheat so it looks like that) ? Of course that is not the only power that gets lost, memory management, pointers - there is so much these approaches sacrifices, now I know their designers love to say things like if you need pointers you are doing it wrong but in my mind that is a cop-out to avoid dealing with the fact that they make it impossible for programmers to use a truly powerful construct that can do some pretty amazing things. The simple truth is that even java's pseudo implementations of things like hash tables to get around the fact that in other languages those are done with pointers aren't good - I have USED java's hash table interface, it's horrid ! As I told a SUN employee a few days ago I will stick with having a truly powerful source-portable fully object oriented language that doesn't practise bondage-and-discipline on style for as long as such languages exist - in short, I will use and promote lazarus - not java As an aside, I remain adamant that anybody who writes a free software/open source program in Java is being foolish. What is the POINT of a free software program that REQUIRES a non-free program just to RUN ? Ciao A.J. -- there's nothing as inspirational for a hacker as a cat obscuring a bug by sitting in front of the monitor - Boudewijn Rempt A.J. Venter Chief Software Architect OpenLab International www.getopenlab.com www.silentcoder.co.za +27 82 726 5103 _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
Re: [lazarus] Object pascal a Modern Language
Hi, Am Samstag, den 04.03.2006, 15:41 +0200 schrieb A.J. Venter: python is a very nice language. Why don't you just write the speed critical parts in C or C++. That's how everyone does it in python. Showing only that python isn't up to the task. Actually showing that one should use the right tool for the job. i.e. Expressive languages for the high level constructs and fast but horrid languages (= assembly, more or less - that is what C is.) for the low level constructs. Just like all these other interpreted languages: .NET, Java... Halfway languages... Trying to get the best of both worlds. Very hard to do but it will show if it's doable or not, so we don't have to try it out to see :) It's cheating, and they all do it: falling back to compiled languaged. My message to the designers of these languages: Quit fooling around, and do things right from the start. This does bring up an interesting point, why is it that more and more languages are becoming interpreted or bytecompiled ? I mean, surely the python designers could have written platform level compilers for no more difficulty than to write bytecompilers ? No... afaik it isn't really a bytecompiler either... its mostly interpreted, which brings them a flexibility unparallelled anywhere else except in lisp (which, ironically, is compiled). Heck they even got jython - compiling to the java vm so they must have had the option. Instead it offers the choices of bytecompiled or scripted. Why is source portability not enough ? Why sacrifice so much speed more speed and power less power. It's always like that. The language of a human (and maths) is just so much more advanced than any computer language, it depresses me at times. (Assembly language is so primitive that we all stopped talking it by now, except when we absolutely must do it. But it sure is flexible, like an atom - you can use tons of them to build a copy of the earth, given you have a few billion years time and way too much patience for your own good :)) to get binary compatibility (or at least cheat so it looks like that) ? Of course that is not the only power that gets lost, memory management, pointers - there is so much these approaches sacrifices, now I know their designers love to say things like if you need pointers you are doing it wrong No, if you need pointer _arithmetic_ you are doing it wrong or using a language that is assembly in disguise. Pointers itself are fine and dandy, but don't *(x + 3 * i + 2) = *(y - 3);. Would you talk like that to a human? No? Why talk like that to a computer then? It's just a sign that something in the language is broken when you need to do stuff like that (except when writing a heap memory manager, I guess). But I mean when you need to do it like all the time, like for arrays (hello C :)). Also, by doing stuff like that you throw all bounds checking out of the window, so you could as well write it in assembly and spare yourself the hassle of using a compiler that brags all the time except where it matters. but in my mind that is a cop-out to avoid dealing with the fact that they make it impossible for programmers to use a truly powerful construct that can do some pretty amazing things. Well, it really depends on what you are doing. I always found the combination pascal assembly great because pascal lets you do the highlevel things nicely and safely (i.e. *checked*), and assembly lets you do the dirty details, without any safety, like being able to shoot yourself in the foot every two instructions or so :). The simple truth is that even java's pseudo implementations of things like hash tables to get around the fact that in other languages those are done with pointers aren't good - I have USED java's hash table interface, it's horrid ! Hash Tables in no way need pointers to be visible. A hash table is so easy a construct.. it's just a normal array. The index into the array is the hash of the key (mod the size of array to prevent out-of-boundness). The value in the array at that index is (key, value). That's it! (The only three weaknesses being 1) you need to find a hash algorithm that doesn't suck _for your data_, 2) the processor cache hates you and will get back at you one of those days :), and 3) resizing requires rehashing usually) Now there are examples for where you mostly do need pointers: trees and lists. The trend for lists goes more to a mixed dynamic array approach - that is, lists of blocks of tons of entries - nowadays (like the inodes are, for example), because the members are more adjacent and the cache likes you more for that (harddisks as well, since they don't need to seek around - it's even worse there). Remaining use for pointers on client side: tree nodes. Not sure if pointer arithmetic is useful there. Guess not. :) As I told a SUN employee a few days ago I will stick with having a truly powerful source-portable fully object oriented
Re: [lazarus] Object pascal a Modern Language
No, if you need pointer _arithmetic_ you are doing it wrong or using a language that is assembly in disguise. Pointers itself are fine and dandy, but don't *(x + 3 * i + 2) = *(y - 3);. Would you talk like that to a human? No? Why talk like that to a computer then? It's just a sign that something in the language is broken when you need to do stuff like that (except when writing a heap memory manager, I guess). But I mean when you need to do it like all the time, like for arrays (hello C :)). Also, by doing stuff like that you throw all bounds checking out of the window, so you could as well write it in assembly and spare yourself the hassle of using a compiler that brags all the time except where it matters. I've decided that C is now officially the learning language for universities. Students will now learn about all sorts of computer memory management in C, but C will never be used for any practical purpose. It serves as the teaching language of what language we should never use but teaches us a lot about the memory in a computer. It also serves as a language which makes a programmer feel happy I'm glad I learned C because it was 8 times harder just to create a string, and now I'm ahead 8 times by not using C. If I wouldn't have learned C I wouldn't have known I was 8 times ahead. As an aside, I remain adamant that anybody who writes a free software/open source program in Java is being foolish. What is the POINT of a free software program that REQUIRES a non-free program just to RUN ? I've also wondered about that.. I mean there is gcj and mono and such, but... why not do something that is better but our own thing... I've looked at parrot for a vm but it's tailored for interpreted languages only. sigh. It's the same as Delphi users doing the JEDI project and allowing borland to use their code without Jedi getting paid. Borland is smiling and laughing all the way to the bank while Jedi developers are smiling, but not laughing to the bank. _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
Re: [lazarus] Object pascal a Modern Language
Object Pascal is a long way from Wirth's pascal or even from turbo pascal. People who say it is a backward language or dead language don't know object pascal, teach C++, and think pascal is algol. The mass of interpreted languages out do indeed have interesting features. Very nice features. But it does mean without the speed of todays hard drives and computers you have serious problems. And sometimes you still have problems. That said You can write some wonderfully difficult to follow scripts in them. They are also good as embedded scripting languages for your application. Notice it took MS a while but they finally opened up and made it where you could embed a number of scripting systems instead of only VB. As i remember Java, i haven't looked at it in about 6 years, there were a number of features which just plain couldn't happen without an interperter. Many of the early compilers were p-code compilers which then required an interperter, i think i had one on my first ibm compatible when i booted under cpm. But everyone always knew java was slow. It wasn't meant to be able to be your primary language for large projects. But as we now have computers 1000s of times faster than my first one, and tremendously faster than when java came out we are getting lazy. I mean when people on a regular basis make arrays that are larger than my early computers had in all of their memory or could even address. Of course, one place i worked at used to sell computers with 5 megabyte hard drives and tell people that's more than you'll ever need. I had a difficult time with that since i had a HUGE 10 megabytes of stuff on floppy disks. ---dale _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
Re: [lazarus] Object pascal a Modern Language
less power. It's always like that. The language of a human (and maths) is just so much more advanced than any computer language, it depresses me at times. (Assembly language is so primitive that we all stopped talking it by now, except when we absolutely must do it. But it sure is flexible, like an atom - you can use tons of them to build a copy of the earth, given you have a few billion years time and way too much patience for your own good :)) This is a nice argument but it's highly subjective, I find OP to be the computer language CLOSEST to human language, python and java both inherrited too much ascii art from C++ and don't get me STARTED on perl ! One of the things I love about OP (a compiled language) is that it uses mostly WORDS to say things, not symbols, true it's slightly more typing - but it is so much more readable. I always tell my trainee's If I NEED comments to read your code - it is badly written. Of course I also make it absolutely clear that any program of more than 100 lines which doesn't have comments is pretty much guaranteed to ensure they won't get a permanent position with me, but comments should be there to add clarity NOT to tell you what the code DOES ! That should be obvious just from reading the code. This isn't possible in most languages, in OP it's the default - that is why I think it's such a brilliantly designed language, and the fact is this is something Pascal has boasted since Wirth invented the first version of it. Pascal is probably the only language you can read (large sections of) aloud without stuttering. In other words, by your argument those languages have all failed at exactly the supposed REASON they are interpreted/bytecompiled in the first place. Like I said, it's way too subjective an argument. Now don't get me wrong, I actually rather like python, it has a nice design (although the whole whitespace has meaning thing annoys me a bit) and a fairly decent syntax but the simple reality is that I write code which will end up running on thin clients - that means if a computer slows down to any noticeable degree when running 50 copies of the program at once -it's not good enough, and that rules out python for anything complex. Lazarus works beautifully, I have the language that I like for most work, I can quickly design my GUI's in a RAD environment and the programs run FAST. In the end, Java has spent ten years telling programmers that computers are now so fast that customers don't care about speed anymore, and in ten years computers still haven't gotten that fast and frankly they never will because as computers get faster customers will always expect software to get faster at the same rate (and customers being customers they will expect it to be just as fast on a PII). In the real world, a program that runs slowly and uses up a lot of resources annoys customers and they find another program. Throw in the realities of Africa, and you end up utilising things like thin clients so that those PII's or sometimes even 486's can run modern day apps. Of course they are never quite as fast as on a P4 but they look as fast to users which is good enough -at least for compiled programs which do not abuse all the available resources in the system but use only what they need leaving the rest for the other users. In the end, the choice of a language is personal and not the least of your concerns should be what language does most of the people on this project know the best, but discounting OP because of what it wasn't in the 80's is ... well uninformed silliness. A.J. -- there's nothing as inspirational for a hacker as a cat obscuring a bug by sitting in front of the monitor - Boudewijn Rempt A.J. Venter Chief Software Architect OpenLab International www.getopenlab.com www.silentcoder.co.za +27 82 726 5103 _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
Re: [lazarus] Object pascal a Modern Language
Hi, Am Samstag, den 04.03.2006, 19:44 +0200 schrieb A.J. Venter: less power. It's always like that. The language of a human (and maths) is just so much more advanced than any computer language, it depresses me at times. (Assembly language is so primitive that we all stopped talking it by now, except when we absolutely must do it. But it sure is flexible, like an atom - you can use tons of them to build a copy of the earth, given you have a few billion years time and way too much patience for your own good :)) This is a nice argument but it's highly subjective, I find OP to be the computer language CLOSEST to human language, Exactly. I count Object Pascal to the best there are (speaking about expressiveness / clarity), actually (along with ada, oberon, smalltalk). python and java both inherrited too much ascii art from C++ java did, python not really.. most is pretty verbose and nice there... have an example? and don't get me STARTED on perl ! eeek. well we all know the-language-we-dont-mention that is write-only, bogged down with as many operators as there a special characters on the keyboard and that has evolved to a real complex incomprehensible monster. One of the things I love about OP (a compiled language) is that it uses mostly WORDS to say things, not symbols, true it's slightly more typing - but it is so much more readable. yes, especially for rare stuff. I mean + for addition is okay, but what's up with instead of and, I mean it saves one char, but needs you to use the shift key now, so it saves 0 keys. And its cryptic. What is that for? And if you absolutely must, use ^ damnit, like in maths. Don't invent _another_ set of symbols for the same thing. And if the exact symbols don't exist on the keyboard, that should tell you something... like hey! those symbols are not used by anyone on a computer :) I always tell my trainee's If I NEED comments to read your code - it is badly written. Of course I also make it absolutely clear that any program of more than 100 lines which doesn't have comments is pretty much guaranteed to ensure they won't get a permanent position with me, but comments should be there to add clarity NOT to tell you what the code DOES ! yes. But I am at a phase now where even seeing design patterns strike me as odd. The language should do them if they are so essential. Why can I see them (and not really well either) in the source code? like observer pattern. That should be a property-change-notify instead... and so on... as a side note: what the hell is will all the people removing enumerations (ex. TDirection = (East, South, West, North)) in later languages? If I can't write a lexer in a language something has to be really f*cked up with it. What are they thinking? (I'd really be interested, strikes me as odd...) That should be obvious just from reading the code. This isn't possible in most languages, in OP it's the default - that is why I think it's such a brilliantly designed language, and the fact is this is something Pascal has boasted since Wirth invented the first version of it. Pascal is probably the only language you can read (large sections of) aloud without stuttering. yes In other words, by your argument those languages have all failed at exactly the supposed REASON they are interpreted/bytecompiled in the first place. Mostly, yes. But it's also because the marketdroids only like stuff that builds on proven stuff, which of course means lowest-common-denominator, e.g. assembly or C. Changing slowly nowadays, though. For the wrong reasons. But I don't care about the reasons as long as the result is good in the end :) Like I said, it's way too subjective an argument. Now don't get me wrong, I actually rather like python, it has a nice design (although the whole whitespace has meaning thing annoys me a bit) and a fairly decent syntax but the simple reality is that I write code which will end up running on thin clients - that means if a computer slows down to any noticeable degree when running 50 copies of the program at once -it's not good enough, and that rules out python for anything complex. Yes, it should be compiled and type checking instead. Check out http://boo.codehaus.org/ though. I am generally opposed to scripting languages, *but* even for compiled languages garbage collection is the way to go, after having 40 years to test it, I think by now we can get it right :) (This is one of the major points object pascal doesn't have... it's not surprising and it's not essential and there are reasons against it, but manual memory management is just... so.. sigh... so manual; although interface refcounting is nice too - slower though) Lazarus works beautifully, I have the language that I like for most work, I can quickly design my GUI's in a RAD environment and the programs run FAST. In the end, Java has spent ten years telling programmers that computers are
Re: [lazarus] Object pascal a Modern Language
On Sat, 4 Mar 2006 08:41:53 -0800, Dale Welch [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But everyone always knew java was slow. It wasn't meant to be able to be your primary language for large projects. This is where I have do disagree, having used Java. Example: I wrote a piece of linguistic software in Java. It needed an lot of HEAVY string handling. Using the wrong technique in concatenation (Strings instead of StringBuffer) I would have had problems. Using the language in a correct manner (Strings where necessary and StrinbBuffer in everywhere else) I got all the functionality I needed and the performance was excellent. Using just Strings is one of the common mistakes that causes low performance when lots of concatenations are done as every concatenation creates a new object. I want to point out that I also wrote a very exotic Replace function in plain Java that I thought would NEVER be fast enough, knowing that I am dealing with bytecode. To my surprise the code was faster than I could ever have dreamed and could be run just like any native .exe. Three years later I wrote the same routines in PHP and used every possible piece of optimization I could think of (and I know PHP very well). I ended up with junk that used 40x CPU compared with the Java one. And believe me, I did everything I could think of. Nope, the PHP can only be used if I write the critical parts (~50% of the application code in C as a PHP extension. So there is a difference between a bytecode/JIT-compiled and a sort-of-compiled language. After that I thought of rewriting the same app in FPC but have not yet had the time to start the project. What I noticed, however, was that a lot of work should be done to achieve the same functionality the Java String/Stringbuffer/Tokenizer classes have - we do not have them in plain FPC. What I really miss is in FPC the multitude of good classes, good functions that Java has. Tokenizer is a good example of a effort-saving utility class that is very well written in Java. Java is definitely NOT slow if written properly and used properly. At least Java basic things (String handling, hash maps, loops etc) perform very well compared with just about any language. With lots mathematics, matrixes and things like that I know less about things may be different though. As for large projects anybody can have a look at Eclipse. In my latest project it was chosen as the default environment and we never had any performance problems with it... not to mention big sites with JSPs and servlets and the J2EE abstraction level. Markku -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
Re: [lazarus] Object pascal a Modern Language
Maybe a StringBuffer type is needed for pascal Do you mean in pascal or for FreePascal? ;-) for very large strings that constantly change via concatenations. Instead of reserving memory for the ansistring to whatever amount you request, the stringbuffer type would reserve extra memory for you in a specifyable increment (256K, 128K, 20K, whatever you choose). If the string has a concatenation on queue which is larger than the increment size, then the stringbuffer allocates enough memory with overlap (several increments until it fills the need). I guess it's not so hugely useful or else someone would have contributed it already. This is much more important in Java because the String objects are constant/immutable and thus can't be reallocated. But maybe a method in TStringList to return all the text without adding linefeeds could be handy ;-) Cheers, Flávio _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
Re: [lazarus] Object pascal a Modern Language
On 3/3/06, Matt Henley [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My personal objective is not just to put out a simulator, but a fast and efficient simulator. Furthermore, personally, I do not consider a program portable if it is written in a language which very few can understand. Althought a lot less popular then c, c++ and java, pascal is still reasonably popular, and is easy to learn. Very important software like Skype is written on Object Pascal. Mac OS 7 and below had a lot of Object Pascal code on them, and it's API was written fully in pascal. A modern language such as any of the .NET languages will meet the efficiency objective but portability remains an issue. This statement isn't true. .NET in general has performance much inferior to native pascal. Take a look at debian shootout comparison of Free Pascal and c#: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/debian/benchmark.php?test=alllang=fpascallang2=csharp Free Pascal is more then 10 times faster and uses 10 times less memory. Yes, benchmarks are all flawed, but a huge difference like this can point at .NET performance flaws. Also take a look at this article: http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1820607,00.asp Specially the part: quoteEverything in Longhorn was supposed to be written in C# and to be managed code. But managed code was going to require machines that weren't going to be available for five years or more. So now Microsoft is rewriting everything in Longhorn, the developer says. Developers claim that the Windows team actually began rethinking Microsoft's .Net Framework and managed code promises last summer, around the time of the infamous Longhorn Reset. (The Longhorn Reset is shorthand for Microsoft's decision to axe certain Longhorn features, most notably WinFS, in order to be able to commit to a 2006 ship date.) end quote While I do have the Visual Studio .NET and I am happy with it, I understand that not everybody has it and it is not cheap. I bet that the price of buying VS will be a much bigger blocker then people needing to write pascal code. Pascal is considered easy to learn, and still used a lot in basic programming courses. It will however, limit us to Pascal which is not really a modern language. For those of you who are in favor of using Lazarus, can you assure the rest of us that Pascal has been modernized? When I talk to developers of other languages they all think Pascal is that non-object oriented thing from early 1980s and that it did not change people need to know that Object Pascal is the real industry used pascal. One prove that Pascal is evolving still today is the talks on fpc mailling lists about the inclusion of templates (generics). -- Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
[lazarus] Object pascal a Modern Language
I belong to a mailing list for a defunt open source chemical process simulator (Sim42). Members of the list are now showing interest in restarting the effort. It was originally written in python which cause some speed issues. Several of the list members (including me) suggested freepascal and lazarus. The gentleman spearheading the effort sent the following and I would like to know what is the best way to respond. I do not know what features define a modern language and would like to know what points to bring up. My personal objective is not just to put out a simulator, but a fast and efficient simulator. Furthermore, personally, I do not consider a program portable if it is written in a language which very few can understand. A modern language such as any of the .NET languages will meet the efficiency objective but portability remains an issue. While I do have the Visual Studio .NET and I am happy with it, I understand that not everybody has it and it is not cheap. I looked at the Lazarus project and (at least at a first glance) it is indeed very Visual and will likely do the job. It will however, limit us to Pascal which is not really a modern language. For those of you who are in favor of using Lazarus, can you assure the rest of us that Pascal has been modernized? Thanks for any help Matt Henley _ To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe as the Subject archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
