On Tue, 4 Jan 2011 14:20:55 +0200, Juha Manninen wrote:
If I told to a Java programmer that Object Pascal features match Java
features, how would I prove it? By showing him the HTML component
code?
IFDEFs and self-made conversion funcs just to support different
string types.
The Java guy would ask if there is any common unicode string type. I
would say
"Not yet but it's coming, but we can't use it because we must support
the old
compiler versions".
The code also has lots of containers and thousands of typecasts to
access
their elements which could be eliminated by using generics
containers.
I would explain to the Java person: "Object Pascal already has
generics but we
can't use them because we must support the historical Pascal syntax".
I would also laugh if I was the Java developer.
So, the minimum requirements for the modernized HTML component would
be Delphi
2009 / FPC with the new unicode support.
If a Java developer ever pulls that argument, slap him in the face.
Just look at some of the common Java libraries ... for example SWT. It
is probably still compatible to Java 1.4 or even 1.3 (hell it could even
be 1.2). For that reason it doesn't use generics and not even enums
(which came with Java 1.5 ... yeah, no real type safety in that regard
until then). It also took until Java 1.5 to have a for-each loop, so
even in that regard FPC isn't really behind.
But Java is a bad example anyway ... if you read the fine "Execution in
the Kingdom of Nouns"[1] by Steve Yegge, FPC will get a pretty good look
;-) (Although he doesn't mention FPC, the points he makes with C++ match
FPC just as well).
Best Regards,
Andreas.
[1]
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/03/execution-in-kingdom-of-nouns.html
_______________________________________________
fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org
http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
