Re: [fpc-pascal] Need three things
Hi, I'm talking from my own knowledge and experience, and not in behalf of anyone else... On 8/12/07, JK Smith at Grid-Sky [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Three things needed in FPC: 1) Garbage collection. Anybody who's worked on apps with objects of objects of objects of objects will see the value in this. If CMEM is used, can the Boehm garbage collector be used? Even a resurrection of the split-heap stuff into something more generalized (mini-heaps) could help here. As a Java developer, I can say that GC is one of the worse things ever invented ... The reason is simple, you never can force the GC to take place (you can try, but it will not work all of the time), but if you already know when you want to free the objects, why not just free the object in the first place ?! Another good practice is to free every created object, so I really do not understand why we really need to have this, however if there will be a good argument, I might agree. 2) Contract programming. We have to be able to show proof of correctness in code to prove the business value of FPC. This will be a major theme for the business side of software development in the future. I believe that by changing the name to something catchy, and to make some marketing for the new language (and some new buzz usages for it) will create a much better effect. This Friday, I was at an open source conference, and when I mentioned the word Pascal people wanted to move along to a new subject... there is no problem with the language... only with the way it feels for some people. 3) A new concurrency model. Multi-core programming adds a layer of complexity, plus the future of computing is all about where I can buy or steal a unit of computing power for my app. Sounds good for me, when do you start working on this one ? ;) Ok, one more: 4) I miss array slice syntax (str:= s[2..7];) from the Stony Brook M2 days. So much more concise than Copy().; Let me please quote Marco and say this is a synthetic sugar, or at least sort of.. it's not like there is no way (without creating your own function) to do this... but if you really want, please write all the pro and cons about it, and if people will think that the pro's are better then the cons' I sure that more people will agree... 2) and 4) could probably be handled by pre-processing. Anybody else thought about this stuff? James Ido -- http://ik.homelinux.org/ ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] Need three things
Op Sun, 12 Aug 2007, schreef ik:
Ok, one more: 4) I miss array slice syntax (str:= s[2..7];) from the Stony
Brook M2 days. So much more concise than Copy().;
Let me please quote Marco and say this is a synthetic sugar, or at
least sort of.. it's not like there is no way (without creating your
own function) to do this... but if you really want, please write all
the pro and cons about it, and if people will think that the pro's are
better then the cons' I sure that more people will agree...
It is supported in FPC 2.2. The reason to support it is not the
syntactic sugar aspects, but to allow passing dynamically allocated
memory.
I.e. if you have a:
procedure sort(var a:array of word);
... and some dynamically allocated memory, a call to sort can be done
like:
var p:Pword;
begin
getmem(p,2000*sizeof(word));
{...}
sort(p[0..1999])
end;
As there is no other way to do this, array slices are a usefull addition
to the language. It also looks like they will allow better optimization in
the future, because the compiler knows more information in advance, like
wether the ranges can overlap or wether the data to be moved is already
aligned.
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Need three things
JK Smith at Grid-Sky wrote: Ok, one more: 4) I miss array slice syntax (str:= s[2..7];) from the Stony Brook M2 days. So much more concise than Copy().; One thing I *really* love about Python. No, really! Brad -- Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. -- Douglas Adams ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] Where is fpmkconv?
Vincent Snijders wrote:
I would say just replace the macros with {$I %FPCTARGETOS%} and {$I
%FPCTARGETCPU%} but how do others feel?
I think that won't work for cross compilation. It returns the
targetos where fpmake s running, not the targetos you want to
compile too.
Are you shure? I mean once you have cross compiled the compiler, rtl
and the lot using FPCTARGETOS or FPCTARGETCPU would yield the right
information for that given compiler and rtl and the lot, not? Or do
they give the actual system information? (which does not seem logical)
No, I am not sure, feel free to test and proof otherwise.
I can't actually cross compile here, so I will never be able to
determine who's right unfortunately.
Suppose I am running on i386-linux and want to compile for i386-win32.
I compile fpmake which has {$I %FPCTARGETOS%} in its source. Suppose I
compile fpmake for i386-win32, then it will contain the correct string
for the unit path. Unfortunately, I cannot run that fpmake on my linux
host, because it is compiled for win32.
So it is necessary to set fpctarget when compiling fpmake to the os of
the host compiles the actual project using fpmake (i386-linux). In
that case the unit dirs are only correct if you don't cross compile.
Sorry but I don't actually understand what you mean here. Is it that
you mean that the following happens?
If Host = i386-linux and Target = i386-win32 then {$I %FPCTARGETOS%} =
linux?
Instead of the expected {$I %FPCTARGETOS%} = win. Which is ok because
the target IS i386-win32.
You never will run a target binary on the host, unless the two are
equal (which is normally the case). And therefore the FPC compiler info
is always usable.
I'm not posing a proof here, but rather a Lemma ;)
Darius
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Need three things
On 12/08/07, ik [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: source conference, and when I mentioned the word Pascal people wanted to move along to a new subject... there is no problem with the language... only with the way it feels for some people. I can't agree more. It is actually funny seeing peoples expressions when they here the word 'Pascal' in the name. This is a huge downfall and probably why Borland decided to call their implementation Delphi. Trying to break the association with Pascal! Regards, - Graeme - ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] Where is fpmkconv?
On 12 Aug 2007, at 09:51, Darius Blaszijk wrote:
If Host = i386-linux and Target = i386-win32 then {$I %FPCTARGETOS
%} = linux?
Instead of the expected {$I %FPCTARGETOS%} = win. Which is ok
because the target IS i386-win32.
Not the target for which you compile fpmake, because fpmake has to
run on the host.
Jonas
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Where is fpmkconv?
Jonas Maebe wrote:
On 12 Aug 2007, at 09:51, Darius Blaszijk wrote:
If Host = i386-linux and Target = i386-win32 then {$I %FPCTARGETOS%}
= linux?
Instead of the expected {$I %FPCTARGETOS%} = win. Which is ok because
the target IS i386-win32.
Not the target for which you compile fpmake, because fpmake has to run
on the host.
Must be my ignorance regarding cross-compiling, but don't you use two
compilers in that case? I mean how is a win cross-compiler going to
create valid executables on a linux host?
Darius
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Need three things
On 12 Aug 2007, at 08:00, JK Smith at Grid-Sky wrote: 1) Garbage collection. Anybody who's worked on apps with objects of objects of objects of objects will see the value in this. If CMEM is used, can the Boehm garbage collector be used? I don't know if anyone has tried this, nor what the exact requirements are for the Boehm garbage collector to work. An llvm code generator backend will allow garbage collection to work (at least if you don't mess around too much with assembler, I suppose), but it's still quite far off. Even a resurrection of the split-heap stuff into something more generalized (mini-heaps) could help here. Garbage collection means that the system relieves you from the memory management mess, and that you cannot get things like double free errors or using pointers are they have been freed. Split heaps on the other hand are still manual memory management and therefore still have similar downsides (and upsides) as other manual memory management techniques. So I don't really see the relation. Even though it may seem at first sight that you do not have to bother with individual objects in case of split heaps, in practice you do because you have to make sure that no pointer to any of those objects can escape beyond where you free the split heap. 2) Contract programming. We have to be able to show proof of correctness in code to prove the business value of FPC. Tom Verhoeff and some of his students are doing some work on pre/ postconditions in a separate branch of FPC. This will be a major theme for the business side of software development in the future. That remains to be seen. 3) A new concurrency model. Multi-core programming adds a layer of complexity, plus the future of computing is all about where I can buy or steal a unit of computing power for my app. This has been mentioned by many people before you, but it is quite difficult to actually come up with such a model which is both easy/ intuitive and correct. Feel free to add your own proposal. Note that extremely unlikely that things will happen just because you say/think they are important. In most commercial project it depends on whether you represent a lot of money which threatens to disappear if your requirements are not met, because money is the primary value there. In non-commercial projects, contributors/maintainers are the primary value, and thus actually submitting something rather than saying what should be done in your opinion is most likely to have any positive effect (there is no shortage of people with great ideas about what we should spend our time on). Jonas ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] Where is fpmkconv?
On 12 Aug 2007, at 10:43, Darius Blaszijk wrote:
Jonas Maebe wrote:
On 12 Aug 2007, at 09:51, Darius Blaszijk wrote:
If Host = i386-linux and Target = i386-win32 then {$I %FPCTARGETOS
%} = linux?
Instead of the expected {$I %FPCTARGETOS%} = win. Which is ok
because the target IS i386-win32.
Not the target for which you compile fpmake, because fpmake has to
run on the host.
Must be my ignorance regarding cross-compiling, but don't you use
two compilers in that case? I mean how is a win cross-compiler
going to create valid executables on a linux host?
Using a cross-assembler and cross-linker (either external or internal
to the compiler). You only need a separate compiler if you compile
for a different cpu platform. And even then you may also want to
cross-compile the entire code on the host platform and only copy the
resulting binary to the target platform.
Jonas
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Where is fpmkconv?
I believe I found a better solution to the problem. In fprepos.pp two
function OSToString and CPUToString are defined.
So a string ./units/$(CPU_TARGET)-$(OS_TARGET)
would be represented as './units/' + CPUToString(Defaults.CPU) + '-' +
OSToString(Defaults.OS)
Darius
Jonas Maebe wrote:
On 12 Aug 2007, at 10:43, Darius Blaszijk wrote:
Jonas Maebe wrote:
On 12 Aug 2007, at 09:51, Darius Blaszijk wrote:
If Host = i386-linux and Target = i386-win32 then {$I
%FPCTARGETOS%} = linux?
Instead of the expected {$I %FPCTARGETOS%} = win. Which is ok
because the target IS i386-win32.
Not the target for which you compile fpmake, because fpmake has to
run on the host.
Must be my ignorance regarding cross-compiling, but don't you use two
compilers in that case? I mean how is a win cross-compiler going to
create valid executables on a linux host?
Using a cross-assembler and cross-linker (either external or internal
to the compiler). You only need a separate compiler if you compile for
a different cpu platform. And even then you may also want to
cross-compile the entire code on the host platform and only copy the
resulting binary to the target platform.
Jonas
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Need three things
On 8/12/07, Jonas Maebe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 12 Aug 2007, at 08:00, JK Smith at Grid-Sky wrote: 1) Garbage collection. Anybody who's worked on apps with objects of objects of objects of objects will see the value in this. If CMEM is used, can the Boehm garbage collector be used? I don't know if anyone has tried this, I tried this long back (~ 4 years ago) and the collector did seem to work atleast on windows. It crashed on Linux everytime though. I think it has got to do something with adding roots to the collector. I had posted about this in the then FPC forums (is it still working?). Cheers, -Krishna -- Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it. -Buddha ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] Need three things
On 8/12/07, Krishna [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 8/12/07, Jonas Maebe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 12 Aug 2007, at 08:00, JK Smith at Grid-Sky wrote: 1) Garbage collection. Anybody who's worked on apps with objects of objects of objects of objects will see the value in this. If CMEM is used, can the Boehm garbage collector be used? I don't know if anyone has tried this, I tried this long back (~ 4 years ago) and the collector did seem to work atleast on windows. It crashed on Linux everytime though. I think it has got to do something with adding roots to the collector. I had posted about this in the then FPC forums (is it still working?). Here's the link to the post I made in 2002: http://community.freepascal.org:1/bboards/message?message_id=115034forum_id=24088#117077 Cheers, -Krishna ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] Need three things (follow-up on contracts)
On Sun, Aug 12, 2007 at 01:00:44AM -0500, JK Smith at Grid-Sky wrote:
Three things needed in FPC:
2) Contract programming. We have to be able to show proof of correctness in
code to prove the business value of FPC. This will be a major theme for the
business side of software development in the future.
Actually, we (at Dept. Math/CS of TUE) have already contributed an
experimental branch to the repository for this. See branches/tue.
That project is in a stable state, ready to be merged (since January).
It is not finished (still a number of missing features).
I am to blame for the delay in taking follow-up actions; my apologies.
Documentation can be found at (in formann.zip, but also is also unzipped)
http://www.win.tue.nl/~wstomv/software/formann/
Basically, the current features are available (see user.pdf).
It is possible to insert assertions before, between or after
any statement, using {@ ...} syntax. These are (optionally)
compiled just like regular Assert()-statements. Furthermore,
pre- and postconditions of functions, procedures and methods
can be given. Class invariants are supported in a limited way.
Before loops the programmer can insert an invariant and a
variant function. Finally, there is support for propositions
and definitions, that act as abbreviations.
Missing are the abilities to use quantified expressions like
'for all', inheritance of class invariants, and giving pre- and
postconditions of procedures and functions in the unit header
instead of the unit implementation.
...
By default, formal annotation parsing is switched off. This
is to maintain backwards compatibility with programs that have
comments that start with [EMAIL PROTECTED] The FreePascal compiler
itself has
at least one place where a comment starts with [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To control the behavior of the compiler with respect to formal
annotation parsing, two options are made available: compiler
directives and command-line arguments.
The command-line argument -Sf switches formal annotation
parsing on.
The compiler directive {$FORMAL+} switches formal annotation
parsing on, {$FORMAL-} switches it off.
The directives take precedence.
(Please note that some formal annotation constructs make the
compiler generate run-time assertion checks. These are not
compiled into actual code if assert()-statement compilation is
switched off.)
If the argument -Aproofobl is given on the command-line, then
proof obligations for procedures and functions with pre- and
postconditions are generated (if feasible), as a LaTeX file.
(Two examples arincluded: naive.pdf, intelligent.pdf.)
The file programmer.pdf contains information for developers; it documents
how things have been implemented.
Maybe a developer can take a look, and we can discuss off-line whether
to merge this, and if so, how to proceed.
Best regards,
Tom
--
E-MAIL: T.Verhoeff @ TUE.NL | Dept. of Math. Comp. Science
PHONE: +31 40 247 41 25| Technische Universiteit Eindhoven
FAX:+31 40 247 54 04| PO Box 513, NL-5600 MB Eindhoven
http://www.win.tue.nl/~wstomv/ | The Netherlands
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[fpc-pascal] Inconsistencies in fpmake?
I was doing some tests with fpmake and came across what appears to be an inconsistency. When fpmaking a program a units/cpu-os is created but the commandline parameters for FPC are -FE. which causes the tool and possible other units to be placed in the directory where the program is located. When calling fpmake clean, the clean algorithm cannot find either the .ppu/.o or the .exe files as it searches the units directory and not the root dir. I would like to patch this inconsistency, but I am not sure what the consensus is on fpmaking tools. 1) should -FU.units/cpu-os be used, so all compiled stuff is separated from the executable which will result in the root dir 2) should -FE. be used as it is now, but the units directory not be created anymore and the clean algorithm adjusted so it searches the right directory? Darius ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] Need three things (follow-up on contracts)
Daniel had mentioned your work in a community post. Thanks for the effort, and I'd love to try it out. And thanks for that detailed post. James ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] Need three things
It is supported in FPC 2.2. Sweet! ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
[fpc-pascal] OT: Rename for Pascal
Hi, I wonder how can we make Pascal and FPC more attractive to people, and I believe in what Donal Knuth have said: The most important thing in the programming language is the name. A language will not succeed without a good name. I have recently invented a very good name and now I am looking for a suitable language. So I believe that if we will change the name, it might help. What do you think ? And what name will you prefer to see FPC as ? Ido -- http://ik.homelinux.org/ ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] OT: Rename for Pascal
On 12 Aug 2007, at 19:30, ik wrote: So I believe that if we will change the name, it might help. What do you think ? I think it will have very little effect. Just look at D: it's a lot like C (so the C crowd isn't immediately put off by it), it has a non-offensive name, it's quite powerful, fixes a lot of C deficiencies, is OOP and yet it's not particularly popular. It's silly to change the name, especially because the language actually is Object Pascal. Next, we'd have to remove begin/end (that reminds too much of Pascal), allow a semi-colon before else (it's typically Pascal that this is not allowed), etc. It's a waste of effort. Jonas ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] Need three things
On 12 Aug 2007, at 19:13, JK Smith at Grid-Sky wrote: Note that extremely unlikely that things will happen just because you say/think they are important. In most commercial project it depends on whether you represent a lot of money which threatens to disappear if your requirements are not met, because money is the primary value there. I'm under no illusions about that. I am convinced that these are necessary projects for the future though. To imply that it is unlikely that they won't happen just because I think they're important simply means that you aren't convinced of their value. Respectfully, I believe you'll change your mind on this in the future. It mainly means that I have plenty of other, imho at least equally important, things to do already :) Such as fixing bugs in the codebase which is already there (which keeps growing and therefore requires more and more maintenance, especially since the number of developer hours available does not grow with it at a similar pace), adding support for Objective Pascal (needed to remain viable on Mac OS X), and adding support for LLVM (needed to support many different processors which we otherwise can never properly support, and also nice to profit from other's people work on low level optimizations). Jonas ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] OT: Rename for Pascal
Here is a suggestion: Called it puma ! :) Like the animal on the website. Puma's are fast. And that's a big adventage of Pascal/Delphi it compiles lightning fast compared to C/C++ crap. Bye, Skybuck. ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] OT: Rename for Pascal
Before assuming FPC isn't atracting users, why don't we start tracking new users and compare it's evolution month by month, year by year. With the help of this method, we can figure out some ways to market FreePascal and Lazarus. We can start by extracting the subscription date of each user of our mailing lists (I don't know if it's possible). After that, it's easy to create statistics and take the corresponding actions. Leonardo. --- Skybuck Flying [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Here is a suggestion: Called it puma ! :) Like the animal on the website. Puma's are fast. And that's a big adventage of Pascal/Delphi it compiles lightning fast compared to C/C++ crap. Bye, Skybuck. Choose the right car based on your needs. Check out Yahoo! Autos new Car Finder tool. http://autos.yahoo.com/carfinder/ ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] OT: Rename for Pascal
Hi, Sorry if I sound a bit harsh, I'm not attacking you personally :) On 8/12/07, Leonardo M. Ramé [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Before assuming FPC isn't attracting users, why don't we start tracking new users and compare it's evolution month by month, year by year. With the help of this method, we can figure out some ways to market FreePascal and Lazarus. I try in the past few years to attract more people in my country to use (Object) Pascal and FPC. On Friday, I've been on an open source event named August Penguin, it was the 6 year that this event exists. In the past 3 events I have tried to make some sort of awareness regarding FPC, and it still does not work. I have created a lecture and gave it twice (about Object Pascal and FPC), still did not made any waves.. On Friday, when I mentioned Pascal, I received reactions of will stop talking about it already. I must say that the audience that I keep trying to get are developers etc.. and not any one on the street. We can start by extracting the subscription date of each user of our mailing lists (I don't know if it's possible). After that, it's easy to create statistics and take the corresponding actions. I joined this malling list not that long ago, however I use FPC for several years now, and I also used Delphi for more then 7 years... So how can you know who is new ? Leonardo. Ido --- Skybuck Flying [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Here is a suggestion: Called it puma ! :) Like the animal on the website. Puma's are fast. And that's a big adventage of Pascal/Delphi it compiles lightning fast compared to C/C++ crap. Bye, Skybuck. Choose the right car based on your needs. Check out Yahoo! Autos new Car Finder tool. http://autos.yahoo.com/carfinder/ ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal -- http://ik.homelinux.org/ ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] OT: Rename for Pascal
Op Sun, 12 Aug 2007, schreef Leonardo M. Ramé: Before assuming FPC isn't atracting users, why don't we start tracking new users and compare it's evolution month by month, year by year. With the help of this method, we can figure out some ways to market FreePascal and Lazarus. We can start by extracting the subscription date of each user of our mailing lists (I don't know if it's possible). After that, it's easy to create statistics and take the corresponding actions. I don't have historic data of the mailinglists. There are about 800 people subscribed to fpc-pascal and 500 fpc-devel subscription. The forum post statistics provide some historic data: http://community.freepascal.org:1/bboards/statistics There is also a non public pages to show new user registrations, which is currently between 50-70 new users/month. In total there are about 12000 users, of which about 1081 have logged in during the last 365 days. Further, there is the sourceforge download statistics, which have some history too. Overall, I don't think we are doing bad. Daniël___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] OT: Rename for Pascal
I joined this malling list not that long ago, however I use FPC for several years now, and I also used Delphi for more then 7 years... So how can you know who is new ? Well, we can't get really accurate dates, but some aproximations based on mailing lists subscription could show us some important numbers. Of course this isn't the best measurement method, it's just an idea, maybe a better one could be to look at other languages (PHP, Python, Ruby or Linux Os) and learn how they know how much users have. Another one could be a FPC Counter, just like http://counter.li.org/ -- Leonardo Ready for the edge of your seat? Check out tonight's top picks on Yahoo! TV. http://tv.yahoo.com/ ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] OT: Rename for Pascal
-- Dani�l Mantione [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Overall, I don't think we are doing bad. I totally agree with you. Be a better Globetrotter. Get better travel answers from someone who knows. Yahoo! Answers - Check it out. http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=listsid=396545469 ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] OT: Rename for Pascal
Well there are some things ofcourse wrong with Free Pascal: 1. First the name: Free Bussiness people don't believe in Free. 2. Free Pascal Quality itself: When I see simple things not working like: Read or Readln or whatever, I run away screaming from Free Pascal ;) :) 3. It doesn't have an advanced development environment like Visual Studio 2005 or Delphi 7 / Delphi 2007 (last one sucky though) I have seen onde IDE Lazareus or something like that and it's a clone of Delphi 7 but it doesn't have the quality yet :) 4. Pascal sounds oldd and reminds people of the 16 bit dos/days. Yak ! Full of frustration, limitations, and code going into the waste basket ;) :) 5. Special features for Free Pascal, what does it offer that the other tools do not ? I know free pascal can cross compile but for now I only need to compile for Windows 32 bit and maybe Windows 64 bit in the future ;) What features does free pascal offer for Win32 or Win64 development which other environments do not ? It has to stand out to attract developers ;) That's my thoughts on it ;) Bye, Skybuck. ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] OT: Rename for Pascal
Well this won't work: 1. People on free pascal mailing list does not mean they use free pascal, they just interested in reading about it, and maybe not even that ;) 2. People downloading free pascal does not mean they use free pascal, maybe they tried it out and decided it was not for them. Here is a good idea: 3. Start selling a free pascal distribution with maybe extra service contract meaning bugs for bussiness users get fixed much more quickly, and then count the number of sales LOL ;) :) Also maybe add extra features for bussiness users, maybe some database support or anything else they ask for. Ofcourse there is also the free user base, maybe hobbists or cheap skates lol. 4. Another idea might be to look for applications compiled with free pascal. 5. And finally ofcourse the all spieing eye which counts the number of times free pascal gets run by the user and reports it to a website. I would not feel totally comfortable using such a tool with such a feature ! Definetly too spyie. 6. The number of libraries/components written for Free Pascal. 7. Websites written for free pascal, documentations and such. Look at all this together I think the reality if pretty obvious free pascal not used that much. Not as much as visual c/c++/c# or Delphi which has a huge number of websites. Let's google a bit: Borland Delphi: 2.5 million hits Free Pascal: 2,680,000 hits -- Delphi Source Code: 2,560,000 hits Free Pascal Source Code: 2,250,000 hits -- Newsgroups: Delphi Source Code: 4,200 hits Free Pascal Source Code: 1,930 hits -- I use Delphi: 1,830,000 hits I use Free Pascal: 5,280 hits Well ofcourse assuming google tells the thruth or tells thruth accuratly would be foolish. Last result is kinda interesting though... only 5280 hits for use. Other hits kinda surprise me... many hits for free pascal ;) :) Maybe you guys not doing that bad after all :) Bye, Skybuck. - Original Message - From: Leonardo M. Ramé [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: FPC-Pascal users discussions fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org Sent: Sunday, August 12, 2007 8:17 PM Subject: Re: [fpc-pascal] OT: Rename for Pascal Before assuming FPC isn't atracting users, why don't we start tracking new users and compare it's evolution month by month, year by year. With the help of this method, we can figure out some ways to market FreePascal and Lazarus. We can start by extracting the subscription date of each user of our mailing lists (I don't know if it's possible). After that, it's easy to create statistics and take the corresponding actions. Leonardo. --- Skybuck Flying [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Here is a suggestion: Called it puma ! :) Like the animal on the website. Puma's are fast. And that's a big adventage of Pascal/Delphi it compiles lightning fast compared to C/C++ crap. Bye, Skybuck. Choose the right car based on your needs. Check out Yahoo! Autos new Car Finder tool. http://autos.yahoo.com/carfinder/ ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] OT: Rename for Pascal
So I believe that if we will change the name, it might help. This kind of topic had been arised a few times. Basically I agree with this idea if it means we should change the name of the compiler, not the name of the language itself. We just can't change the language name, just like what Jonas had said, it's just simply (object) pascal. However, we could learn from Borland that named their IDE as Delphi though it still uses object pascal language. Or learn from SUN, that named their language as Java though it's pretty another variant of C++. Somehow good names are able to bring lucks and bussiness people just love good names (they called them as marketable). :D What do you think ? And what name will you prefer to see FPC as ? I don't have good ideas, yet. But it should able to reflect FreePascal very well, like fast, cross platform, free, etc. Puma sounds nice, but we must open for other alternatives. ;) -Bee- has Bee.ography at: http://beeography.wordpress.com ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
Re: [fpc-pascal] OT: Rename for Pascal
Sory for top posting, I am using a phone... 1. There is nothing wrong with Free in the name. Many open-source apps have that. Business people trust their wallets. And here, a lot more trust Linux and Open apps. If you know how to present that. 2. I don't know what is wrong on your side, but my side, I did few lightweight applications on linux (including console tcpd services with mysql database background and serial communication) which are working just fine. 3. Maybe this is not the idea. It is so powerfull on console type applications for now. And there are still many console apps needs with networking and database support. And when you can do that freely, fast and on an open OS, this is great. 4. This name made me download (and this old reminders :)) 5. Who needs Windows? :)) By me, FPC is fine and I am still using this as a good alternative writing programs to use my own developped hardware, with database and communication support. So, keep it on. Best regards, Mihai Well there are some things ofcourse wrong with Free Pascal: 1. First the name: Free Bussiness people don't believe in Free. 2. Free Pascal Quality itself: When I see simple things not working like: Read or Readln or whatever, I run away screaming from Free Pascal ;) :) 3. It doesn't have an advanced development environment like Visual Studio 2005 or Delphi 7 / Delphi 2007 (last one sucky though) I have seen onde IDE Lazareus or something like that and it's a clone of Delphi 7 but it doesn't have the quality yet :) 4. Pascal sounds oldd and reminds people of the 16 bit dos/days. Yak ! Full of frustration, limitations, and code going into the waste basket ;) :) 5. Special features for Free Pascal, what does it offer that the other tools do not ? I know free pascal can cross compile but for now I only need to compile for Windows 32 bit and maybe Windows 64 bit in the future ;) What features does free pascal offer for Win32 or Win64 development which other environments do not ? It has to stand out to attract developers ;) That's my thoughts on it ;) Bye, Skybuck. ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal ___ fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
