date:20050602

On Thursday 02 June 2005 13:04, Jamie McCracken wrote:

 However, in general Pascal has poor developer productivity when
 compared to modern languages like python and C#.

In terms of _written_ or in terms of _working_ lines of code? :-


Vinzent.

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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

2005-06-02 Thread Ales Katona


Jamie McCracken wrote:


Marc Weustink wrote:




What is easier to read is a matter of taste.
Being a pascal devel for years now, it takes time to decode a  a := b
:= c := d := 0  line. There might be a ; inbeween which results in a
complete different assignment. With such lines I've to read them over 
and

over to see what is going on.
Where a line like a := 0; b := 0; c := 0; d := 0; is clear to me.
This also counts for the proposed c-isms.

For me I prefere clarity above less typing (besides if you want to write
realy short code, you sould use APL)



I totally agree with you in this case - we dont want or need cryptic c 
stlye syntax in any version of Pascal.


However, in general Pascal has poor developer productivity when 
compared to modern languages like python and C#. Ironically python is 
perhaps the most popular language on Linux and most of its syntax is 
derived from object pascal whereas pascal on linux is virtually 
non-existant. Of course Python is piss poor in both performance and 
memory usage but it does point the way to a revitalised pascal. 
Adopting less verbose but still clean and clear syntax ala python is 
IMHO the way to make Pascal great again.


Consider the developer unfirendly nature of pascal/Delphi atm:

1) Forward declarations - they sux! Why should the developers have the 
burden of making the code totally sequential declaration wise. All 
other modern compilers dont need this. Sure your code might take a bit 
longer to compile but thats peanuts compare to the time saved in extra 
typing and reordering your code


2) I have touched on manual memory managaement of tobjects before so I 
wont rehash it here (in summary ref count tobjects and they should 
have good performance with c++ style exception handling).


3) loads of small and pointless additional syntax like EG for creating 
an object you should just be able to say:


myobject.create;

and not

myobject := Tobject.create;

also Begin..End blocks should IMO be replaced with python's indenting.

Yeah I know this sounds like a hybrid pascal/python but I believe 
thats the way to go - marry Delphi's speed and component framework 
with less verbose python style syntax and you will have the best RAD 
language ever written.


jamie.


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MyObject.Create is impossible with classes on the heap. You need to 
assign MyObject a pointer but you can't do that from within create.


Forward declarations are IMHO required because otherwise the compiler 
would have to make additional passes(it does 3 AFAIK).

Besides, they are seldom enough to be a problem.

How does python handle modularity btw?

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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion


Vinzent Hoefler wrote:

On Thursday 02 June 2005 13:04, Jamie McCracken wrote:



However, in general Pascal has poor developer productivity when
compared to modern languages like python and C#.



In terms of _written_ or in terms of _working_ lines of code? :-


Dont kid yourself - a lot of my fellow Delphi programmers have dumped it 
for C# already so it is really worrying for me espcially with borland 
being virtually bankrupt. Delphi as it is faces a bleak future so its 
looking increasingly like its time to modernise or die.


jamie.


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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

2005-06-02 Thread Florian Klaempfl

Jamie McCracken wrote:

 Marc Weustink wrote:
 


 What is easier to read is a matter of taste.
 Being a pascal devel for years now, it takes time to decode a  a := b
 := c := d := 0  line. There might be a ; inbeween which results in a
 complete different assignment. With such lines I've to read them over and
 over to see what is going on.
 Where a line like a := 0; b := 0; c := 0; d := 0; is clear to me.
 This also counts for the proposed c-isms.

 For me I prefere clarity above less typing (besides if you want to write
 realy short code, you sould use APL)

 
 I totally agree with you in this case - we dont want or need cryptic c
 stlye syntax in any version of Pascal.
 
 However, in general Pascal has poor developer productivity when compared
 to modern languages like python and C#. 

I'am a poor delphi programmer, didn't use it for years, but I bet with any
python programmer that I create any application faster than him :)

 Ironically python is perhaps the
 most popular language on Linux and most of its syntax is derived from
 object pascal whereas pascal 

Well, I wonder which languages the kernel, X windows, GNOME, KDE, OpenOffice,
Mozilla etc. use ;), definitively not python ... Python is a usuable scripting
language but nothing more.

 on linux is virtually non-existant. 

The problem with pascal on linux was/is that there was no good compiler in the
90s for linux so a lot developers got lost.

 Of
 course Python is piss poor in both performance and memory usage but it
 does point the way to a revitalised pascal. Adopting less verbose but
 still clean and clear syntax ala python is IMHO the way to make Pascal
 great again.

I wonder if Python couldn't revive Fortran with it's strange formatting rules.

 
 Consider the developer unfirendly nature of pascal/Delphi atm:
 
 1) Forward declarations - they sux! Why should the developers have the
 burden of making the code totally sequential declaration wise. All other
 modern compilers dont need this. 

C++ is still the number one language and it requires it.

 Sure your code might take a bit longer
 to compile but thats peanuts compare to the time saved in extra typing
 and reordering your code

Did you ever work in a team? Then you know why ordering declarations is a good
practice because reading non sequential declarations is hard.

 
 2) I have touched on manual memory managaement of tobjects before so I
 wont rehash it here (in summary ref count tobjects and they should have
 good performance with c++ style exception handling).

Good performance like python ;)?



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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion






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MyObject.Create is impossible with classes on the heap. You need to 
assign MyObject a pointer but you can't do that from within create.


sorry myobject is the pointer so a better example would be :

var strlist : Tstringlist;

strlist.create;


This should be easy as you know the pointer type.



Forward declarations are IMHO required because otherwise the compiler 
would have to make additional passes(it does 3 AFAIK).


They are not required in a multipass compiler. If you cant resolve a 
symbol on a single pass you can do so on a subsequent one.



Besides, they are seldom enough to be a problem.


Pain in the arse they are. Its annoying and makes use of the code 
explorer a neccsity when dealing with large classes. Its a total waste 
of my time.




How does python handle modularity btw?


WHat do you mean?

Im a Delphi programmer not a python one (though Ive done bits and pieces 
in python) but I do envy its less verbose syntax as its just as clean 
and clear.


jamie.


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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion

On Thursday 02 June 2005 13:22, Jamie McCracken wrote:
 Vinzent Hoefler wrote:
  On Thursday 02 June 2005 13:04, Jamie McCracken wrote:
 However, in general Pascal has poor developer productivity when
 compared to modern languages like python and C#.
 
  In terms of _written_ or in terms of _working_ lines of code? :-

 Dont kid yourself - a lot of my fellow Delphi programmers have dumped
 it for C# already so it is really worrying for me espcially with
 borland being virtually bankrupt. Delphi as it is faces a bleak
 future so its looking increasingly like its time to modernise or die.

Yeah. Flies. Shit.

They keep telling me the same about Ada. Still, I am much more 
productive than any of my fellow programmers who are doing things in C, 
Java, or Python. While they are still debugging and chasing 
NullPointerExceptions and such stuff, I already implemented the next 
needed feature.

I can't even remember when was the last time I actually needed a 
debugger.


Vinzent.

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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

2005-06-02 Thread Michael Van Canneyt




On Thu, 2 Jun 2005, Jamie McCracken wrote:


Marc Weustink wrote:




What is easier to read is a matter of taste.
Being a pascal devel for years now, it takes time to decode a  a := b
:= c := d := 0  line. There might be a ; inbeween which results in a
complete different assignment. With such lines I've to read them over and
over to see what is going on.
Where a line like a := 0; b := 0; c := 0; d := 0; is clear to me.
This also counts for the proposed c-isms.

For me I prefere clarity above less typing (besides if you want to write
realy short code, you sould use APL)



I totally agree with you in this case - we dont want or need cryptic c stlye 
syntax in any version of Pascal.


However, in general Pascal has poor developer productivity when compared to 
modern languages like python and C#. Ironically python is perhaps the most 
popular language on Linux and most of its syntax is derived from object 
pascal whereas pascal on linux is virtually non-existant. Of course Python is 
piss poor in both performance and memory usage but it does point the way to a 
revitalised pascal. Adopting less verbose but still clean and clear syntax 
ala python is IMHO the way to make Pascal great again.


I beg to differ.

Recently I rewrote a python program (on linux). The pascal version was
shorter and much clearer to understand. The python syntax is a horror
as far as I'm concerned.

What makes python interesting are the many classes it offers by default
to perform standard tasks, especially in the text treatment department;
regular expression stuff etc.

The same goes for most languages; Mostly it's not the language syntax
that determines the productivity factor; it's the number of standard
available routines.

Quabbling about being able to type
  a:=b:=c:=d;
is beside the question. If your productivity depends on that, you're
either in the wrong business, or you are using the wrong kind of editor.
A good IDE/Editor has tools to make typing less cumbersome.

In the company where I work, 4 languages are in use: Delphi, VB, C++
and PHP. In order of descreasing productivity they are rated as follows:
- Delphi
- PHP
- VB
- C++
The order of VB/PHP was the most surprising for me; but that can maybe
be explained by the kind of app the language is used for.

Pascal is a language that allows you to develop in many styles, with as
much or as little optimization as you want, and all along it keeps your
code readable, which is very important when you work in team and you
need to read other people's code frequently. To see what I mean, try
reading this little 'gem':

int a[1817];main(z,p,q,r){for(p=80;q+p-80;p-=2*a[p])for(z=9;z--;)q=3(r=time(0)
+r*57)/7,q=q?q-1?q-2?1-p%79?-1:0:p%79-77?1:0:p1659?79:0:p158?-79:0,q?!a[p+q*2
]?a[p+=a[p+=q]=q]=q:0:0;for(;q++-1817;)printf(q%79?%c:%c\n, #[!a[q-1]]);}

(better yet, run it)

Michael.

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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion

On Thu, 02 Jun 2005 14:22:55 +0100
Jamie McCracken [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  In terms of _written_ or in terms of _working_ lines of code? :-
 
 Dont kid yourself - a lot of my fellow Delphi programmers have dumped it 
 for C# already so it is really worrying for me espcially with borland 

C# is very much like delphi, not at all like Python. What were their reasons to 
switch ?

Python is hard to read, especially if multiple blocks are closed at once, then 
it's hard to see what block a line belongs to (because of missing 'end' or '}').

I also don't like the magic. For example the 'mystrings.create;' example you 
mentioned, it's *totally* not consistent with regular syntax: mystrings.create 
means call TStringList.Create on the object pointed to by the mystrings 
variable.

Micha

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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion


Florian Klaempfl wrote:



I'am a poor delphi programmer, didn't use it for years, but I bet with any
python programmer that I create any application faster than him :)


You must be a damn fast typer then :)






Ironically python is perhaps the
most popular language on Linux and most of its syntax is derived from
object pascal whereas pascal 



Well, I wonder which languages the kernel, X windows, GNOME, KDE, OpenOffice,
Mozilla etc. use ;), definitively not python ... Python is a usuable scripting
language but nothing more.


I agree but nevertheless it has become popular for desktop applications. 
Ubuntu and Fedora now uses it exclusively for filling in the blanks in 
their gnome desktops.





on linux is virtually non-existant. 



The problem with pascal on linux was/is that there was no good compiler in the
90s for linux so a lot developers got lost.


Gnu pascal?



1) Forward declarations - they sux! Why should the developers have the
burden of making the code totally sequential declaration wise. All other
modern compilers dont need this. 



C++ is still the number one language and it requires it.


yes but that aint modern! C# and python do not.





Sure your code might take a bit longer
to compile but thats peanuts compare to the time saved in extra typing
and reordering your code



Did you ever work in a team? Then you know why ordering declarations is a good
practice because reading non sequential declarations is hard.


Yes i have worked in small teams and that was never an issue. Of course 
crazy ordering is harmful but any reasonable ordering is readable.






2) I have touched on manual memory managaement of tobjects before so I
wont rehash it here (in summary ref count tobjects and they should have
good performance with c++ style exception handling).



Good performance like python ;)?


If that were the case then yeah it would sux (however pythons 
performance is due to bien a bytecode interpreter and dynamic typing 
neither of which we need in pascal).


jamie.


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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion


Michael Van Canneyt wrote:


However, in general Pascal has poor developer productivity when 
compared to modern languages like python and C#. Ironically python is 
perhaps the most popular language on Linux and most of its syntax is 
derived from object pascal whereas pascal on linux is virtually 
non-existant. Of course Python is piss poor in both performance and 
memory usage but it does point the way to a revitalised pascal. 
Adopting less verbose but still clean and clear syntax ala python is 
IMHO the way to make Pascal great again.



I beg to differ.

Recently I rewrote a python program (on linux). The pascal version was
shorter and much clearer to understand. The python syntax is a horror
as far as I'm concerned.


Im not saying make pascal behave like python so if you were doing some 
weird dynamic stuff with python thats fair enough. ALl im sayting is 
theres no harm in replacing some of the verbose syntax with less verbose 
ones provided they dont harm the clarity of the code.


I love delphi but find its verbosity a pain in  some circumstances.


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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

2005-06-02 Thread Florian Klaempfl

Jamie McCracken wrote:

 Florian Klaempfl wrote:
 

 I'am a poor delphi programmer, didn't use it for years, but I bet with
 any
 python programmer that I create any application faster than him :)
 
 
 You must be a damn fast typer then :)

I teached myself typing with 10 fingers, but typing is not the issue with auto
completion etc. Show me a python ide which can do the same tricks as lazarus or
delphi.

 The problem with pascal on linux was/is that there was no good
 compiler in the
 90s for linux so a lot developers got lost.
 
 
 Gnu pascal?

We were talking about good :)

 
 
 1) Forward declarations - they sux! Why should the developers have the
 burden of making the code totally sequential declaration wise. All other
 modern compilers dont need this. 



 C++ is still the number one language and it requires it.
 
 
 yes but that aint modern! C# and python do not.

Modern doesn't mean necessarily good ...

 Good performance like python ;)?
 
 
 If that were the case then yeah it would sux (however pythons
 performance is due to bien a bytecode interpreter and dynamic typing
 neither of which we need in pascal).

Ref. counting etc. eats time because you need good garbage collection to detect
cycles and other ugly stuff.


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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion


Vinzent Hoefler wrote:

On Thursday 02 June 2005 13:04, Jamie McCracken wrote:



However, in general Pascal has poor developer productivity when
compared to modern languages like python and C#.



In terms of _written_ or in terms of _working_ lines of code? :-



Both in fact as they are directly correlated.
The studies show that in high level languages (C nothwithstanding) there is 
very evident but simple correlation -- number of programmer errors per 
language construct (typically in not obfuscated code it's very close to the 
number of not empty  non comment source lines) is independent of the 
language. But languages do differ significantly wrt. how many constructs are 
required to solve particular programming problems.


C++ (pre stl) was worst there, Python, Perl  likes were the best, Java was 
not that bad but still about 30% worse thatn Python (C++ was 100% i.e 2x 
worse). The biggest boost to effectivanes was bring by introducing automated 
memory management (i.e. getting rid of explicit memory freeing). So even 
languages with ugly C-ish syntax like Perl the awful can beat otherwise 
elegant  clean languages. Hence probably the greaytest impact on Objective 
Pascal productioveness would come from allowing programmers to declare 
classes like self managing (self freeing, not needeing explicit destructions).



rgds
--
Sebastian Kaliszewski

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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

On Thursday 02 June 2005 13:38, Jamie McCracken wrote:
 Florian Klaempfl wrote:
  I'am a poor delphi programmer, didn't use it for years, but I bet
  with any python programmer that I create any application faster
  than him :)

 You must be a damn fast typer then :)

No, that's a common misunderstanding (especially amongst C-programmers).

What matters is designing und understanding the code, not writing it. I 
spend less than 10% of my time at work in actually _writing_ code, so 
even if someone can type in his/her code twice as fast, the maximum 
(s)he would gain would be five percent in overall performance.


Vinzent.

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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion


Micha Nelissen wrote:

On Thu, 02 Jun 2005 14:22:55 +0100
Jamie McCracken [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:



In terms of _written_ or in terms of _working_ lines of code? :-


Dont kid yourself - a lot of my fellow Delphi programmers have dumped it 
for C# already so it is really worrying for me espcially with borland 



C# is very much like delphi, not at all like Python. What were their reasons to 
switch ?


Because its so close to Delphi and they have switched because they found 
it more productive. No forward declarations, garbage collection and a 
richer framework has made them switch to the dark side. We need to fight 
back!





Python is hard to read, especially if multiple blocks are closed at once, then 
it's hard to see what block a line belongs to (because of missing 'end' or '}').


not true because of the indenting (use bigger indents!). Im not saying 
python is great I just envy *some* of its shorter syntax and it would be 
so cool if Delphi/pascal did likewise - we could blow all these inferior 
languages away.




I also don't like the magic. For example the 'mystrings.create;' example you mentioned, 
it's *totally* not consistent with regular syntax: mystrings.create means call 
TStringList.Create on the object pointed to by the mystrings variable.


Well pascal in the only mainstream langugae that does that - I dont see 
the pont and it aint magic.


jamie.

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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion


Florian Klaempfl wrote:



If that were the case then yeah it would sux (however pythons
performance is due to bien a bytecode interpreter and dynamic typing
neither of which we need in pascal).



Ref. counting etc. eats time because you need good garbage collection to detect
cycles and other ugly stuff.


There should be no cycles on TObjects so we dont need performance 
sapping code to detect them. TCOmponents are likely to have cycles as 
they tend to link to each other but then they would not be ref counted 
as they are parent/child owner managed anyway


jamie.





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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion


Vinzent Hoefler wrote:

On Thursday 02 June 2005 13:38, Jamie McCracken wrote:


Florian Klaempfl wrote:


I'am a poor delphi programmer, didn't use it for years, but I bet
with any python programmer that I create any application faster
than him :)


You must be a damn fast typer then :)



No, that's a common misunderstanding (especially amongst C-programmers).

What matters is designing und understanding the code, not writing it. I 
spend less than 10% of my time at work in actually _writing_ code, so 
even if someone can type in his/her code twice as fast, the maximum 
(s)he would gain would be five percent in overall performance.


you are missing the point!

Whather you can implement something faster in another language is not 
the issue. I am arguing for less verbose syntax without decreasing the 
clarity of the code in delphi/pascal and that is logically gonna improve 
productivity without taking anything away.



jamie.





Vinzent.




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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion

On Thu, 02 Jun 2005 14:52:13 +0100
Jamie McCracken [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  C# is very much like delphi, not at all like Python. What were their
  reasons to switch ?
 
 Because its so close to Delphi and they have switched because they
 found  it more productive. No forward declarations, garbage collection

I don't understand, why are these forward declarations so evil ? 

Garbage collection is largely no issue when using the Owner concept in 
TComponent, using TObjectList, etc.

 and a  richer framework has made them switch to the dark side. We need
 to fight  back!

Ok, but richer framework simply needs people adding packages and useful units 
to freepascal :-).

  Python is hard to read, especially if multiple blocks are closed at
  once, then it's hard to see what block a line belongs to (because of
  missing 'end' or '}').
 
 not true because of the indenting (use bigger indents!). Im not saying

Bigger indents cause the text to go too wide. More functions also help, I agree.

 python is great I just envy *some* of its shorter syntax and it would

Ok, some, but not this one ?

  I also don't like the magic. For example the 'mystrings.create;'
  example you mentioned, it's *totally* not consistent with regular
  syntax: mystrings.create means call TStringList.Create on the
  object pointed to by the mystrings variable.
 
 Well pascal in the only mainstream langugae that does that - I dont
 see  the pont and it aint magic.

Sorry, the only language that does what ?

Micha

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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

2005-06-02 Thread Michael Van Canneyt




On Thu, 2 Jun 2005, Jamie McCracken wrote:


Vinzent Hoefler wrote:

On Thursday 02 June 2005 13:38, Jamie McCracken wrote:


Florian Klaempfl wrote:


I'am a poor delphi programmer, didn't use it for years, but I bet
with any python programmer that I create any application faster
than him :)


You must be a damn fast typer then :)



No, that's a common misunderstanding (especially amongst C-programmers).

What matters is designing und understanding the code, not writing it. I 
spend less than 10% of my time at work in actually _writing_ code, so even 
if someone can type in his/her code twice as fast, the maximum (s)he would 
gain would be five percent in overall performance.


you are missing the point!

Whather you can implement something faster in another language is not the 
issue. I am arguing for less verbose syntax without decreasing the clarity of 
the code in delphi/pascal and that is logically gonna improve productivity 
without taking anything away.


This is only 'logical' if the hypothesis

productivity is inversely related to the syntax verbosity

is correct.

I question the correctness of the hypothesis, and I assume, so does
Florian...

Michael.

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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion


Michael Van Canneyt wrote:



I don't consider Ojbect Pascal to be verbose at all, so it's not an 
issue for

me...


Well I will typically spend about 25% of my development time with 
forward declarations, doing loads of try finaly blocks to free memory 
and other things instead of implementing my application.


jamie.



Michael.

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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

On Thursday 02 June 2005 14:01, Jamie McCracken wrote:
 Vinzent Hoefler wrote:

  What matters is designing und understanding the code, not writing
  it. I spend less than 10% of my time at work in actually _writing_
  code, so even if someone can type in his/her code twice as fast,
  the maximum (s)he would gain would be five percent in overall
  performance.

 you are missing the point!

No, I don't. I'm damn sure what I am talking about.

 Whather you can implement something faster in another language is not
 the issue.

Right. The issue is if you can make it work, i.e. how long you have to 
test and debug it and how long someone needs to understand it when he 
comes to that code later (that's called maintenance, I think).

 I am arguing for less verbose syntax without decreasing
 the clarity of the code in delphi/pascal

Which is an almost impossible task. Sure you can tweak it here and 
there, but it would _at best_ simplify the task of writing the code in 
the first place. You are just missing the remaining 98% of the 
development cycle of a typical medium to large software project.

You won't gain anything there, even if and /only if/ you could manage to 
simplify some syntax without having *any* impact on understanding the 
code later.

(BTW, Ada is even more verbose than Pascal and for the things I'm doing 
it is still /more/ productive. I'm talking about error rates and such 
stuff, not how much time spending in front of the monitor typing 
something that *may* work, if you just debug it long enough).

 and that is logically gonna
 improve productivity without taking anything away.

It would, if you could actually manage to accomplish that task. But as I 
tried to point out, those 5% don't matter. You can lose *much* more and 
much easily on a bad design. 90% of software development costs is 
testing. And then it is much better to actually be able to _read_ and 
_understand_ the code instead of writing it.


Vinzent.

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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion


Micha Nelissen wrote:

I don't understand, why are these forward declarations so evil ? 



More code bloat, more typing and they get in the way. They dont give me 
anything useful in return.




Garbage collection is largely no issue when using the Owner concept in 
TComponent, using TObjectList, etc.


True and thats why I suggested ref counting Tobjects only so that no 
manual memory management is required. I tend to make heavy use of TList, 
Tstringlist and TFilestream objects so I cant do everything with 
tcomponents alas.





and a  richer framework has made them switch to the dark side. We need
to fight  back!



Ok, but richer framework simply needs people adding packages and useful units 
to freepascal :-).



Python is hard to read, especially if multiple blocks are closed at
once, then it's hard to see what block a line belongs to (because of
missing 'end' or '}').


not true because of the indenting (use bigger indents!). Im not saying



Bigger indents cause the text to go too wide. More functions also help, I agree.



python is great I just envy *some* of its shorter syntax and it would



Ok, some, but not this one ?


Well typing begin..end all over the place isn't a lot of fun :(

Especially as Im gonna have to indent them as well just to make em 
readable. So yeah it seems they are more pointless syntax bloat.




I also don't like the magic. For example the 'mystrings.create;'
example you mentioned, it's *totally* not consistent with regular
syntax: mystrings.create means call TStringList.Create on the
object pointed to by the mystrings variable.


Well pascal in the only mainstream langugae that does that - I dont
see  the pont and it aint magic.



Sorry, the only language that does what ?


var strlist : TStringlist;
strlist := Tstringlist.create;

I know strlist is a Tstringlist, the compiler knows it too as I have 
declared it so why do I have to spell it out in the creation process?


jamie.

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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

On Thursday 02 June 2005 14:24, Jamie McCracken wrote:

 Well I will typically spend about 25% of my development time with
 forward declarations, doing loads of try finaly blocks to free memory
 and other things instead of implementing my application.

I typically spend 80% of my development time in *thinking* about what I 
should do, 10% in writing the code, 5% in showing that it works and 5% 
in drinking coffee to enhance the productivity of the first 80%.

Well, of course, this is a slight exaggeration.


Vinzent.

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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion


Vinzent Hoefler wrote:

On Thursday 02 June 2005 14:01, Jamie McCracken wrote:


Vinzent Hoefler wrote:



What matters is designing und understanding the code, not writing
it. I spend less than 10% of my time at work in actually _writing_
code, so even if someone can type in his/her code twice as fast,
the maximum (s)he would gain would be five percent in overall
performance.


you are missing the point!



No, I don't. I'm damn sure what I am talking about.


So am I. My point is not changing the language so that it incurs 
additional maintenance or is harder to read or harder to fix bugs or 
make bugs more likely. In fact its the complete opposite.


My point is to to reduce or remove *redundant* syntax that serves no 
useful or productive purpose (to the programmer).


Forward declarations are redundant - they exist purely for the benefit 
of the compiler.


Begin..End is redundant - you have to indent them to make em readable 
anyways.


manual memory management of tobjects is redundant as you can get good 
performance with ref counting tobjects.


All in all the changes would mean you spend more of your time 
implementing your application rather than typing loads of redundant 
code. Maintenance is easier as their is less redundancy.


jamie.






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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion

On Thu, 02 Jun 2005 15:31:51 +0100
Jamie McCracken [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Micha Nelissen wrote:
 
  I don't understand, why are these forward declarations so evil ? 
  
 
 More code bloat, more typing and they get in the way. They dont give me 
 anything useful in return.

Please show me a piece of code where they are in the way. Code bloat? They 
don't cost anything in the executable.

 python is great I just envy *some* of its shorter syntax and it would
  
  Ok, some, but not this one ?
 
 Well typing begin..end all over the place isn't a lot of fun :(

Have you done maintenance yet of other people's code ?
 
 Especially as Im gonna have to indent them as well just to make em 
 readable. So yeah it seems they are more pointless syntax bloat.

They are not pointless to me: they indicate clear structure, but we may simply 
differ in opinion here.

  Sorry, the only language that does what ?
 
 var strlist : TStringlist;
 strlist := Tstringlist.create;
 
 I know strlist is a Tstringlist, the compiler knows it too as I have 
 declared it so why do I have to spell it out in the creation process?

In C++:

TStringList strlist;

strlist = new TStringList;

How is that shorter ?

Micha

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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion


Micha Nelissen wrote:

On Thu, 02 Jun 2005 15:31:51 +0100
Jamie McCracken [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:



Micha Nelissen wrote:


I don't understand, why are these forward declarations so evil ? 



More code bloat, more typing and they get in the way. They dont give me 
anything useful in return.



Please show me a piece of code where they are in the way. Code bloat? They 
don't cost anything in the executable.


thats not what I meant! I mean its source code bloat to me especially 
when trying to follow code with large classes in it.






python is great I just envy *some* of its shorter syntax and it would


Ok, some, but not this one ?


Well typing begin..end all over the place isn't a lot of fun :(



Have you done maintenance yet of other people's code ?
 

Especially as Im gonna have to indent them as well just to make em 
readable. So yeah it seems they are more pointless syntax bloat.



They are not pointless to me: they indicate clear structure, but we may simply 
differ in opinion here.


But its the indenting that gives the structure. If i used begin end 
blocks without indenting there would be no clear structure - it would be 
a mess!






Sorry, the only language that does what ?


var strlist : TStringlist;
strlist := Tstringlist.create;

I know strlist is a Tstringlist, the compiler knows it too as I have 
declared it so why do I have to spell it out in the creation process?



In C++:

TStringList strlist;

strlist = new TStringList;

How is that shorter ?


okay but its still redundant. Why does the compiler need to have it 
spelt out twice? Why cant the compiler deduce that as the pointer is 
declared as TStringlist therefore it creates a TStringList?



jamie.

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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

On Thursday 02 June 2005 14:44, Jamie McCracken wrote:

 My point is to to reduce or remove *redundant* syntax that serves no
 useful or productive purpose (to the programmer).

Well applied redundancy is a good thing.

 Forward declarations are redundant - they exist purely for the
 benefit of the compiler.

IBTD.

 Begin..End is redundant - you have to indent them to make em readable
 anyways.

No. This makes the code more readable like normal english text. It 
states much more clearly what it intents, at least much more than just 
indenting or putting curly braces around it.

 manual memory management of tobjects is redundant as you can get good
 performance with ref counting tobjects.

That can be a point, yes. But it is somehow not related to any syntax.

 All in all the changes would mean you spend more of your time
 implementing your application rather than typing loads of redundant
 code.

Typing is only a very small part of the development cycle. Performance 
measures indicate that rhe average programmer delivers about 2 to 20 
lines per code per day (measured over the whole development cycles, 
this of course includes testing, too).

Compare these with the lines of code you *could* write in eight hours if 
you would just write them and you see how much you could optimize away 
there if you'd actually manage to double the performance.

 Maintenance is easier as their is less redundancy.

It simply depends on the kind of redundancy.

For instance, type and var keywords are just redundant, the compiler 
could figure it out by itself, still they serve a useful purpose.


Vinzent.

-- 
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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion

On Thu, 02 Jun 2005 15:54:54 +0200
Sebastian Kaliszewski [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 The studies show that in high level languages (C nothwithstanding) there is 
 very evident but simple correlation -- number of programmer errors per 
 language construct (typically in not obfuscated code it's very close to the 
 number of not empty  non comment source lines) is independent of the 
 language. But languages do differ significantly wrt. how many constructs are 
 required to solve particular programming problems.

A correlation of things that are independent ? Then there is no correlation ?

Micha

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RE: [fpc-devel] type discussion

2005-06-02 Thread Marc Weustink

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jamie
McCracken
Sent: donderdag 2 juni 2005 16:32

var strlist : TStringlist;
strlist := Tstringlist.create;

I know strlist is a Tstringlist, the compiler knows it too as I have 
declared it so why do I have to spell it out in the creation process?

What to do with virtual constructors or variables of a lower class ?

ie.

var strlist: TStrings;
strlist := Tstringlist.create; 

or

var strlist: TStrings; listclass: TStringsClass;

listclass := TStringlist;
strlist := listclass.create; 

Marc


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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion


Michael Van Canneyt wrote:

This is only 'logical' if the hypothesis

productivity is inversely related to the syntax verbosity

is correct.


And it's not.

What is correct is productivity is directly related to the number of 
separate language constructs developer has to put in program to acomplish 
the task



So, for example, need to put separate finally block to free memory means 
additional few constructs. Or lack of standard libary supplied container 
apropriate for a task requires programmer to develop his/her own or to adapt 
something less usable.


Geeintg rid of end in begin / end wont help much (as they can;t be 
separated, they count as single construct).



So here is some little idea which seems to me Pascalish enough to be considered:

how about new keyword: local
Class variable declared local will be automatically freed upon every exit 
from the scope (i.e. something along the lines of implicit try/finally for 
some builtin types).



And there are possibly few variants of the thing:

1a.

var
  mySth: local TSomething;

begin
  mySth := TSomething.create();
  ...

end;


1b.

var
  mySth: TSomething local;

begin
  mySth := TSomething.create();
  ...

end;


2.

local
  mySth: TSomethin;

begin
  mySth := TSomething.create();
  ...

end;



So in 1. local is just a type modifier (in case of 1a it might make sense to 
allow it also in type declaration, hence allowing allways local classes -- 
but I'm not convinced it's desirable, and it definiately requires more work 
on compiler side). 1b. is like some other storage modifiers like absolute 
(and might be prefered). 2. is substituting local instead of var for local 
objects -- so such local object declarations stand out more int the code, 
but it's also further away from standard Pascal.



Is it worth something?


rgds
--
Sebastian Kaliszewski

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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion

2005-06-02 Thread Christian Iversen

 Sorry, the only language that does what ?
 
 var strlist : TStringlist;
 strlist := Tstringlist.create;
 
 I know strlist is a Tstringlist, the compiler knows it too as I have
 declared it so why do I have to spell it out in the creation process?
 
  In C++:
 
  TStringList strlist;
 
  strlist = new TStringList;
 
  How is that shorter ?

 okay but its still redundant. Why does the compiler need to have it
 spelt out twice? Why cant the compiler deduce that as the pointer is
 declared as TStringlist therefore it creates a TStringList?

Because the pointer might not be. Polymorphism, you know? :-)

-- 
Regards,
Christian Iversen

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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion

On Thursday 02 June 2005 15:16, Uberto Barbini wrote:

 If the goal is this, I'd prefear a way to declare objects
 autocreated:

 varauto:
   strlist: TStringList;
 begin
   //some stuff
 end;

[...]

 It could be a problem to pass parameters to the constructor.

Yes, exactly. So why bother the extra complexity? You still need the 
real thing, so for consistency it's better to stay with it only.

Something like this you can see in Java: In the constructor of a derived 
class you always need to call the constructor of the base class in the 
first place. So, to simplify the task, the compiler does the magic 
for you, if there is a default constructor that has no parameters. 
Great. But the virtually same code just does not compile when there is 
no such thing as a parameterless constructor and you keep asking you 
why it does not f***ing compile. Until you read the 500 pages of the 
JLS and then *know* that the compiler does stupidly magic tricks for 
you. It can even become much more confusing if you have more than a 
single constructor.

I don't think, this makes anything easier, less error-prone, whatever. 
It just confuses people.


Vinzent.

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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion


Michael Van Canneyt wrote:


But the compiler needs to check many things:

1. Initialize the S with Nil.
2. Check that S is assigned only once during the lifetime of the
   procedure.
   This is actually a bigger restriction than you might think,
   unless you want to introduce reference counting.
3. Put a try/finally block and generate a call to S.Destroy at the end.
   It must also catch any errors that may occur when s.destroy is
   called. For classes, this danger is very real; For ansistrings it is
   not (well, very small)
4. It cannot assign S to anything, since that could mean that the
   lifetime of S could be prolonged. The alternative is again again ref. 
counting.


This is not so easy, and reference counting is always a mess...


Well you already have the code for ref counting for com objects so its 
not like its a ton of work and therefore we dont need to worry about 
your four points. Adding C++ style exception handling should make it 
fast enough too (ok that is some work).


jamie.






Michael.

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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion


Vinzent Hoefler wrote:

On Thursday 02 June 2005 15:16, Uberto Barbini wrote:



If the goal is this, I'd prefear a way to declare objects
autocreated:

varauto:
 strlist: TStringList;
begin
 //some stuff
end;



[...]


It could be a problem to pass parameters to the constructor.



Yes, exactly. So why bother the extra complexity? You still need the 
real thing, so for consistency it's better to stay with it only.


Thats why I proposed a month back in my modernising pascal thread to 
implement things like a stringlist as a base type container (like pyhton 
does with lists, dicts etc). This would then be dynamically allocated 
and ref counted.


jamie.


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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

 Marco van de Voort wrote:
  Some of these target functionality (specially in the linking section) might 
  require restructures
  related to
  * introduction of an internal linker for some core platforms (no more 
  LD)
  * Rewrite of module (unit) handling
 
 Yes, these would be great, IMHO.



  For the rest, improve RTL/FCL compability and extend them in general, and 
  of course fixbugs.
  
 Beside of compatibility towards Delphi or MacPascal or others FPC should be
 open to other modifications/extensions (maybe Delphi one day copies FC a bt
 :-), and not always the other way round)
 
 Maybe a few things should be borrowed from RemObjects Chrome, such as
 
 -- Class Contracts
 http://www.remobjects.com/page.asp?id={DFA00D71-D5A4-40A3-9FD0-251899EB30D8}
 
 I like the 'require/ensure' aproach.

Glorified asserts. This is inventing syntax for marketing reasons.

 It makes the code more robust and more debuggable, IMHO

Nope. It just is a limited form of assert with special syntax. Definitely
does not mark the trival syntax test.

 -- Generics
 http://www.remobjects.com/articles/?id={A1D08EE3-0D9E-4828-AFB3-B2C1E772186E}

 I am not sure if Generics could be done in FPC.

Probably yes, however it will not be easy. IMHO Generics/templates are
definitely on the list, but don't expect it anywhere soon, unless there is
massive help.
 
 -- Virtual Properties and Events
 http://www.remobjects.com/page.asp?id={10E153AD-E05F-48CE-9CED-BCED5C9CDE99}

Understandable. However lots of performance issues. One could mitigate some
of these by e.g. requiring virtual properties to only use static methods and
adding optimizations.

RemObject/.NET probably either don't care about speed, and/or have some 
global optimalisations that makes adding this kind of stuff not to hurtful.

Probably a bit of both.

IMHO not a definite no, it would be either unoptimal, or a lot of work.

 -- Enhanced Multicast Events
 http://www.remobjects.com/page.asp?id={CC9C4828-9E49-4C41-AFD9-0BFFA4E9C3D3}
 
 Inline variable initializers, such as:
 
 type
TSomethingElse = class(TSomething)
private
  FInteger: Integer = 15;
  FBoolean: Boolean = False;
  FString: String = 'SOME TEXT';
  {etc}
protected
public
published
end;

Can be done otherwise (simply init it). - Syntactic sugar.
 
 Similarly, for
 
 function Something(...): Boolean = False;
 var
Integer1: Integer = 15;
Boolean1: Boolean = False;
String1: String = 'SOME TEXT';
 begin
 end;

Useless IMHO. Equal to above (initialising in syntax what can be inited 
normally)
 
 Procedure Something(Out AInteger: Integer = 12; );
 var
Integer1: Integer = 15;
Boolean1: Boolean = False;
String1: String = 'SOME TEXT';
 begin
 end;

Same. Don't even add to productivy
 
 a way to write integer constants in any base, not only
 binary/octal/hexadecimal (not so important, but easy to implement)
  
  Rarely used. Specially since more than base 36 becomes a notational 
   problem. However it has been brought up before.
 
 If someone contributes the code, why not. 
 It does not hurt, IMHO.

Because the more features, the more involved maintainance of the compiler
becomes. So keep that work for features that are worth it.

I don't like this one, but it might already exist (in mac mode), since ISO
Paslla has this.
 

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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion

Vinzent Hoefler wrote:

On Thursday 02 June 2005 13:54, Sebastian Kaliszewski wrote:

No, they aren't (or let me put it this way: It depends on what you
measure). For instance, studies indicate that there are ten times more
errors code in C code then in Ada code once you've delivered the
software.

If you didn't notice I wrote C nothwithstanding. C is far away from modern
high level languages (and also many older than it but hight level languages).

The studies show that in high level languages (C nothwithstanding)
there is very evident but simple correlation -- number of programmer
errors per language construct (typically in not obfuscated code it's
very close to the number of not empty non comment source lines) is
independent of the language.

You must have read different studies. :)

Certainly. Those I read were about mainsteream software development not
niche life critical realitime systems. The study was measuring error rate in
some typical and rather simple prgramming task coded in varius languages by
varius programmers. Correlation found was clear -- number of bugs per 1kloc
were constatant and independent of the language. The difference was that the
same task could be coded in some languages using significantly lesser number
of lines.

A while ago Lockheed Martin
switched to SPARK code (which is a statically proven version of Ada)
and they claimed this saved them about 80% of development cost compared
with former projects of the same size (and we're talking about a flight
control system of five million lines of code here).

Two things:
1. They'd better claim they got significant gains or someone should be fired
for wasting money. IOW I take all such corporation made studies not with a
grain but with a shuffle of salt.
2. You're talking about complex life-critical realtime system, not
mainstream software. In such system the cost of bugs is many orders of
magnitude higher than in mainstream. Cost structure of such projectes
differs stronly from mainstream programming.

C++ (pre stl) was worst there, Python, Perl likes were the best,
Java was not that bad but still about 30% worse thatn Python (C++ was
100% i.e 2x worse).

What did they actually measure? Which languages did they compare. The
list above is all (except Python) more or less C-ish or even worse
syntax.

There was a bunch of popular languages (don't remember them all), C like
were C++, Java Perl. Others certainly were not.

The biggest boost to effectivanes was bring by
introducing automated memory management (i.e. getting rid of explicit
memory freeing).

Which is something you definitely don't want in large scale realtime
systems.

But FPC is useless in such systems as well. Besides lack of convincing
argumentation about compiler correctness, you need real time guarantees wrt
allocations and other library stuff (which FPC does not provide).

So even languages with ugly C-ish syntax like Perl
the awful can beat otherwise elegant clean languages.

Of course they can under certain circumstances. Just as a bubble sort
can beat a quick sort algorithm if you feed the right input.

If you'd use not the naive version of Qsort, but something more elaborate
then you'd have to caerefully craft contrived input to cause it to work
badly. But naive Qsort will work terribly on really common input.

Those examples were real code not some contrived stuff.

Hence
probably the greaytest impact on Objective Pascal productioveness
would come from allowing programmers to declare classes like self
managing (self freeing, not needeing explicit destructions).

Maybe, yes. But I'm old school. I like to handle memory myself.

Well, I met some people who needed 'full controll' so they wnated to code in
assembly.

And I
still need less than 2 MB while a Java VM is still loading its 100 MB
foot print into memory. ;-

Java is a different story, but GC overhead is not that bad in some better
languages (2-3x). And performance seems to be unaffected:

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/benchmark.php?test=alllang=fpascallang2=ocamlsort=fullcpu

Here comes Pascal (FPC) vs Ocaml (hybrid functional/imperative language with
OO). Ocaml is significantly faster although it havily uses GC. Ocaml code is
significantly shorter too (they can be coded in significanly lesser amount
of lines).

rgds
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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

 On Thursday 02 June 2005 13:38, Jamie McCracken wrote:
  Florian Klaempfl wrote:
   I'am a poor delphi programmer, didn't use it for years, but I bet
   with any python programmer that I create any application faster
   than him :)
 
  You must be a damn fast typer then :)
 
 No, that's a common misunderstanding (especially amongst C-programmers).
 
 What matters is designing und understanding the code, not writing it. I 
 spend less than 10% of my time at work in actually _writing_ code, so 
 even if someone can type in his/her code twice as fast, the maximum 
 (s)he would gain would be five percent in overall performance.

I doubt you would get that high.

A educated typist can get over 120 keys/min (and that is already lowered
because of many shifts, with real text it). I don't think the avg line of code
is longer than 20 chars. That is 360 lines/hr. SLOC, not code with whitespace,
and not counting generated code with codetools.

Most of the time of entry is spent in navigating and searching, not code
adding. And then data entry is only a small part overall.


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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

2005-06-02 Thread Ales Katona


Marco van de Voort wrote:


Also, I simply don't see the use of it. Borland Pascal's have the forward
directive for those really few cases where it is annoying.
 


Also, forward declarations mostly mean shitty code / design.
Atleast in my case it does.

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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion

 On Thursday 02 June 2005 13:54, Sebastian Kaliszewski wrote:
  probably the greaytest impact on Objective Pascal productioveness
  would come from allowing programmers to declare classes like self
  managing (self freeing, not needeing explicit destructions).
 
 Maybe, yes. But I'm old school. I like to handle memory myself. And I 
 still need less than 2 MB while a Java VM is still loading its 100 MB 
 foot print into memory. ;-

I think the time spent doing the manual compilation is overestimated, and
the time problem solving in automatic allocation is underestimated.

How many Java programmers routine set references to NIL ? Really a lot...

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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

 
  Begin..End is redundant - you have to indent them to make em readable
  anyways.
 
 No. This makes the code more readable like normal english text. It 
 states much more clearly what it intents, at least much more than just 
 indenting or putting curly braces around it.

Not every syntax is about minimizing code or readability. Some are also
to simply simplify parsing (and that is about compiler developer, but to make
the language more internally consistent) and avoid long lookaheads. These things
combined also improve quality of error messages a lot.

  manual memory management of tobjects is redundant as you can get good
  performance with ref counting tobjects.

For trivial programs: yes. However FPC is not designed for short scripting
programs.
 
  Maintenance is easier as their is less redundancy.
 
 It simply depends on the kind of redundancy.
 
 For instance, type and var keywords are just redundant, the compiler 
 could figure it out by itself, still they serve a useful purpose.

See above.

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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion


Marco van de Voort wrote:

I think the time spent doing the manual compilation is overestimated, and
the time problem solving in automatic allocation is underestimated.

How many Java programmers routine set references to NIL ? Really a lot...


This only shows the implementation (and std library design) is bad (and 
that's true at least to java 1.4)


rgds
--
Sebastian Kaliszewski

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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

 Michael Van Canneyt wrote:
  This is only 'logical' if the hypothesis
  
  productivity is inversely related to the syntax verbosity
  
  is correct.
 
 And it's not.
 
 What is correct is productivity is directly related to the number of 
 separate language constructs developer has to put in program to acomplish 
 the task

True. But the problem is that the task is not a constant. _If_ you really
try to exploit this feature, and increase your programming speed (by not
having to track object age and owner), you will have to deal with
irregularties in deallocation (GC storms), null pointer exceptions etc.

 Or lack of standard libary supplied container 
 apropriate for a task requires programmer to develop his/her own or to adapt 
 something less usable.

Partially true yes. However the only reasonable solution for that is
generics I think.
 So here is some little idea which seems to me Pascalish enough to be 
 considered:
 
 how about new keyword: local
 Class variable declared local will be automatically freed upon every exit 
 from the scope (i.e. something along the lines of implicit try/finally for 
 some builtin types).

No. Inconsequent. 

I think you are totally on the wrong track if you want to try to solve this
with language.

There are only two solutions :
1) go fully automated
2) have only the minimum on base automated types (e.g. strings, I don't count
variants, since they are for a specific purpose)

Any patchy solutions will only go against this. Most allocations aren't
limited to a simple scope anyway. Since not everything is an object, there
is a lot less object creation going on.

Even dynamic arrays were somewhat doubtfull, but finally mostly added
because of Delphi compat.


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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

 Michael Van Canneyt wrote:
 
  
  This is not so easy, and reference counting is always a mess...
 
 Well you already have the code for ref counting for com objects so its 
 not like its a ton of work and therefore we dont need to worry about 
 your four points. Adding C++ style exception handling should make it 
 fast enough too (ok that is some work).

No it won't. The ref counting is expensive. Test e.g. speeds with Decal
vs an own implementation on Delphi. 

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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion

 The difference was that the same task could be coded in some languages
 using significantly lesser number of lines.
 
But that doesn't necessarily equal to less overall time. Also specially 
the size of the testing code pieces. The troubles typically only start  when
the program grows larger.



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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion


L505 wrote:


| Yeah I know this sounds like a hybrid Pascal/python but I believe thats
| the way to go - marry Delphi's speed and component framework with less
| verbose python style syntax and you will have the best RAD language ever
| written.
|

You are asking to reinvent python. If I were you, I'd just look into finding a 
python
compiler. Everything you say points to the fact that you like the way python is 
laid
out. That's fine, there's nothing wrong with different taste.


No not at all. I dont want python but I would like to borrow some of its 
more concise syntax to make delphi less verbose thats all. Python is way 
too flawed with its grossly inefficient dynamic typing to ever be good 
for building general purpose applications.


I'll see if I can create a modern dialect and integrate it into FPC... 
Any documents/info on how the compiler is laid out would be most 
appreciated.


jamie.

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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion

2005-06-02 Thread Uberto Barbini

  This only shows the implementation (and std library design) is bad (and
  that's true at least to java 1.4)

 I hear this from nearly any language with automated allocation (C#, Python,
 Perl, Java). The concept is simple and attractive, the practice seems to
 be different.

I'm not a grear fan of them, but managed objects are indeed very useful for 
modelling business applications.
But they don't make sense for system classes, so all in all I'm against 
them.
Some OPF like InstantObjects offer a kinda of them, and I think this is a good 
compromize.


Bye Uberto

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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

2005-06-02 Thread L505


| 
| 
|  I'am a poor delphi programmer, didn't use it for years, but I bet with
|  any
|  python programmer that I create any application faster than him :)
| 
| 
|  You must be a damn fast typer then :)


Sometimes it's which keys are near the home key. I don't care if { is shorter 
than
begin, because { requires the shift key and finger strain. Plus, I always 
convert
{ into begin of code block in my mind anyway.

I rarely find that fast typing helps my coding. It sure helps when writing 
emails.. or
when doing bulk operations on big amounts of code. But when creating code, 
usually you
have to stop and think.. and fast typing is useless. It helps when you are 
typing
comments for the code. Pressing things like End and the arrow keys takes my 
hand off
the home keys, and this cramps up my coding thought. But it's never the typing 
speed
that helps my productivity when writing code. Just comments and bulk operations 
on
code that was already written, that is now being changed.

What I find that takes more time then the typing, is running to the manual 
trying to
figure out what this cryptic thing does, or what parameter goes where. For 
example, if
you set(red,edit) how do you know it isn't set(edit,red)? So in php when I was 
using a
text editor.. I didn't have code completion and I always had to look things up. 
Or,
even with code completion, you still have to look up more detailed descriptions 
of
what the parameters are. But it's not the typing that costs me time.

What also takes more time than the typing of code is writing comments for the 
code.
Any language requires comments for the code, so there would be no advantage for 
any
language there. Comments are comments.

Lars


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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

2005-06-02 Thread Hans-Peter Diettrich

listmember wrote:

 Inline variable initializers, such as:
...
 function Something(...): Boolean = False;
 var
Integer1: Integer = 15;
Boolean1: Boolean = False;
String1: String = 'SOME TEXT';
 begin
 end;

Such constructs are subject to frequent misinterpretation :-(

I assume that you want to have C semantics, where the variables are
initialized at every invocation of the subroutine. Other people think
that the variables are static, retaining their values across calls
(like writeable constants).


In general I prefer an implementation of features that exist in other
Pascal compilers, over an implementation of new and incompatible
features, whose impact on the overall language (stability, type
safety...) are unpredictable.

Sometimes I dream of an compiler for both Pascal and C syntax, with
simple switching between both languages. But I would not dare to suggest
how those C parts should work, i.e. what features and bugs of which C
compiler should be implemented, and how the C code should fit together
with the Pascal code, with regards to type and operation safety.

DoDi



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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

2005-06-02 Thread Hans-Peter Diettrich

Jamie McCracken wrote:

  For me I prefere clarity above less typing (besides if you want to write
  realy short code, you sould use APL)
 
 
 I totally agree with you in this case - we dont want or need cryptic c
 stlye syntax in any version of Pascal.

ACK.

 However, in general Pascal has poor developer productivity when compared
 to modern languages like python and C#. Ironically python is perhaps the
 most popular language on Linux and most of its syntax is derived from
 object pascal whereas pascal on linux is virtually non-existant. Of
 course Python is piss poor in both performance and memory usage but it
 does point the way to a revitalised pascal. Adopting less verbose but
 still clean and clear syntax ala python is IMHO the way to make Pascal
 great again.

IMO Python is preferred for its portability. Consider the efforts
required to distribute a C project, with autobloat, configure and all
that crap. Python in contrast is the modern BASIC, that made programming
easy, at the cost of execution speed. And, like BASIC, Python IMO is not
such a general (unlimited) programming language as are C or Pascals.

 Consider the developer unfirendly nature of pascal/Delphi atm:
 
 1) Forward declarations - they sux! Why should the developers have the
 burden of making the code totally sequential declaration wise. All other
 modern compilers dont need this. Sure your code might take a bit longer
 to compile but thats peanuts compare to the time saved in extra typing
 and reordering your code

I agree that forward declarations and circular unit references suck. If
it's only compilation time, according improvements are welcome. But I
suspect that the introdution into the compiler would exceed the current
manpower :-(


 3) loads of small and pointless additional syntax like EG for creating
 an object you should just be able to say:
 
 myobject.create;
 
 and not
 
 myobject := Tobject.create;

That conflicts with e.g. someproc(someclass.create);
It also is useless with polymorphism, where the type of the variable can
differ from the type of the created object.


 also Begin..End blocks should IMO be replaced with python's indenting.

No, please :-(

A single run through an inappropriate editor could irrecoverably damage
the indentation!

I for my part would prefer a cleaner syntax, closer to Modula or Oberon,
with statement_list vs. statement_sequence. The ends etc. can be
inserted by an appropriate editor, if somebody wants less typing...


 Yeah I know this sounds like a hybrid pascal/python but I believe thats
 the way to go - marry Delphi's speed and component framework with less
 verbose python style syntax and you will have the best RAD language ever
 written.

I like RAD, but only when paired with the reliability and (type...)
safety of Pascal. RAD never should mean: type fast, debug forever - or -
press run and cross your fingers :-(

Or, as Vinzent pointed out:
 However, in general Pascal has poor developer productivity when
 compared to modern languages like python and C#.

 In terms of _written_ or in terms of _working_ lines of code? :-


The careful design of a programming language is not a simple task. What
looks nice to the user, may look very different to the compiler writer.
It also should be noted that the amount of *helpful* compiler error
messages heavily depends on the language design.

Unfortunately there exist multiple Pascal compilers, each with different
extensions to the original language, reducing the portability of source
code. With regards to Python you only can hope that there will never
come a
second Python system, and that the development of the language and
libraries will be continued, once the current implementors leave the
project.

DoDi



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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion

2005-06-02 Thread L505


| More code bloat, more typing and they get in the way. They dont give me
| anything useful in return.


Why do you even bother using Pascal, it seems you obviously do not like one bit 
about
it.

|
|
|  Garbage collection is largely no issue when using the Owner concept in 
TComponent,
using TObjectList, etc.
|
| True and thats why I suggested ref counting Tobjects only so that no
| manual memory management is required. I tend to make heavy use of TList,
| Tstringlist and TFilestream objects so I cant do everything with
| tcomponents alas.
|
| 
| and a  richer framework has made them switch to the dark side. We need
| to fight  back!
| 
| 
|  Ok, but richer framework simply needs people adding packages and useful 
units to
freepascal :-).
| 
| 
| Python is hard to read, especially if multiple blocks are closed at
| once, then it's hard to see what block a line belongs to (because of
| missing 'end' or '}').
| 
| not true because of the indenting (use bigger indents!). Im not saying
| 
| 
|  Bigger indents cause the text to go too wide. More functions also help, I 
agree.
| 
| 
| python is great I just envy *some* of its shorter syntax and it would
| 
| 
|  Ok, some, but not this one ?
|
| Well typing begin..end all over the place isn't a lot of fun :(

Why do you even bother using Pascal, it seems you obviously do not like one bit 
about
it.

|
| Especially as Im gonna have to indent them as well just to make em
| readable. So yeah it seems they are more pointless syntax bloat.
|

Why do you even bother using Pascal, it seems you obviously do not like one bit 
about
it.

|
| I also don't like the magic. For example the 'mystrings.create;'
| example you mentioned, it's *totally* not consistent with regular
| syntax: mystrings.create means call TStringList.Create on the
| object pointed to by the mystrings variable.
| 
| Well Pascal in the only mainstream langugae that does that - I dont
| see  the pont and it aint magic.
| 
| 
|  Sorry, the only language that does what ?
|
| var strlist : TStringlist;
| strlist := Tstringlist.create;
|
| I know strlist is a Tstringlist, the compiler knows it too as I have
| declared it so why do I have to spell it out in the creation process?

Why do you even bother using Pascal, it seems you obviously do not like one bit 
about
it.



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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion

2005-06-02 Thread L505


|  In C++:
|  
|  TStringList strlist;
|  
|  strlist = new TStringList;
|  
|  How is that shorter ?
| 
| okay but its still redundant. Why does the compiler need to have it 
| spelt out twice? Why cant the compiler deduce that as the pointer is 
| declared as TStringlist therefore it creates a TStringList?
| 
| 


Why can't I just go 

strlist = new 

Draw the line.

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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

2005-06-02 Thread listmember


-- Class Contracts
I like the 'require/ensure' aproach.

It makes the code more robust and more debuggable, IMHO


I think the checks you can do there are to limited. I also wonder what
will happen if a require isn't met. Personally I don't want exeption in my
released app.


No, these are assertions not as exceptions.


-- Generics
I am not sure if Generics could be done in FPC.


There were some discussions about it here and AFAIK some are trying to
implement.


Any links?


-- Virtual Properties and Events

The examples given there are not very different of what is possible now.
Make SetWith virtual and you have almost the same.

What however would be nice is if you could override the getter or setter.
Something like
property Width write MySetWidth


I think you missed a few things here.

type
  TMyClass = class
...
property Width: integer read write; virtual; abstract;
  end;

As you can see, getters and setters are not in the picture
at all. Which means, you have all the freedom you want in
the derived class.

Plus, I like the idea that I could have a base class
with read-only property that can not be overriden to be
read-write later.

property Width: integer read; virtual; abstract;

OK, while I like the idea, I can not think of how I would
use it though :-) Can someone help me out here G


-- Enhanced Multicast Events



This is not really new. You can implement it yourself like

property OnChange: TNotifyList;

and then OnChange.Add(Notifyproc) or OnChange.Remove(Notifyproc)


OK. Nice to be able to do that. Do I have to write my
TNotifyList every time I need it?


Inline variable initializers, such as:


[snip]



var
 Integer1: Integer = 15;
 Boolean1: Boolean = False;
 String1: String = 'SOME TEXT';


Hmm.. sometimes usefull. You can put it as first lines 

 in your constructor/codeblock, but keep it thogheter in
 say large classes can be handy.

Yes, and it improved the readability, IMHO. Plus, there is
no reason for you to alter that in constructor/codeblock too.


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Re: [fpc-devel] modernizing pascal discussions

2005-06-02 Thread listmember

If you want to modernize the language you can take the current fpc code 
and extend it yourself. If the extension is clear and we agree on it it 
can eventually be put in the main fpc release.


Discussions are useful.

Before one starts coding away, a consensus would be nice to have.

I would not want to spend days on something only to be thrown
out simply because the idea or the principle got on the wrong
sides of others.


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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

2005-06-02 Thread Daniël Mantione



Op Thu, 2 Jun 2005, schreef Jamie McCracken:

 So am I. My point is not changing the language so that it incurs
 additional maintenance or is harder to read or harder to fix bugs or
 make bugs more likely. In fact its the complete opposite.

 My point is to to reduce or remove *redundant* syntax that serves no
 useful or productive purpose (to the programmer).

No, adding syntactic sugar usually does more harm than it is an
enrichment. It promotes people to write code that only works on 1 compiler
and increases the learning curve for people trying to learn the language.

Syntactic sugar can be added *if* it really does have an advantage.
However, changing the way constructors are done saves only a few
keystrokes, but keeps people away from understanding class references,
which, if understood well, can be a very powerfull tool (virtual
constructors, calling class methods of class references etc.)

So, I very much doubt if this proposal will help.

Don't take us wrong, we are very much in favour of modernizing the
language. However, we are getting *lots* of proposals like this, only
*for* *no* *other* *reason* than to save a few keystrokes.

Granting all those wishes would turn the language in an enourmous
monster. That doesn't look like a good idea. We've also a limit amount of
developers whos time needs to be spent well, or we'll get behind.

So, we're very convervative. Good ideas though, that will really benefit
people, will be read with great interrest.

 Forward declarations are redundant - they exist purely for the benefit
 of the compiler.

Here I disagree. I like that I only need to look upward to search a
procedure. Even when I program C I order the procedures like I to in
Pascal, since it'll save time in the long term.

 Begin..End is redundant - you have to indent them to make em readable
 anyways.

Here I agree, however, Pascal was designed this way. If I would design the
language I would have likely chosen something shorter. On the other hand,
I only need to type alt+B and I have a begin/end combo. Even without it,
the begin/end doesn't irritate me.


 manual memory management of tobjects is redundant as you can get good
 performance with ref counting tobjects.

I agree that automatic memory management eases the programming job.
However, Pascal is a manual memory management language. That has
advantages, software written in Pascal is fast, perceived fast by people,
and uses very little memory.

Users like software written in Pascal. They dislike software requiring
JDK's and .NET runtimes.

So, lets turn the disadvantage in an advantage. Pascal is no replacement
for Java and C#. It is a replacement for C and C++.

Now, the majority of software is written in C and C++. Isn't that a great
potential market?

 All in all the changes would mean you spend more of your time
 implementing your application rather than typing loads of redundant
 code. Maintenance is easier as their is less redundancy.

As has already been said, typing is not the problem, maintenance is.
Pascal does a good job here, saving people a lot of time.

Daniël


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Re: [fpc-devel] How to manually control debug information

2005-06-02 Thread Peter Vreman


At 19:36 2-6-2005, you wrote:

Hello,

I'm writting a custom preprocessor and I would like that the line number
information maps to the original file. An example (not real, only an
example):

  ...original.pas...
  21 procedure AddFive(var a, b: Integer);
  22 begin
  23   a := ++b;
  24 end;

After preprocessor:

  ...processed.pas...
  25 procedure AddFive(var a, b: Integer);
  26 begin
  27   Inc(b);
  28   a := b;
  29 end;

I would like that stepping in the debugger through AddFive showed 
original.pas

in lines 21 to 24, not processed.pas in lines 25 to 29.

How could I do that?


That is not possible with fpc


Peter


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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion


Daniël Mantione wrote:


Op Thu, 2 Jun 2005, schreef Jamie McCracken:



Daniël Mantione wrote:





Ok! We'll be happy to assist anyone doing interresting developments with
Free Pascal. Keep in mind though that implementing ideas can take a lot
more time that thinking out ideas.

The Free Pascal parser is indeed manual craftmanship. Some experimenting
was done using yacc in the past but a handwritten parser turned out to be
the best choice. The parser units start with the letter p, for example
pexpr.pas is the expression parser.


You've done it the hard way - no wonder developer's are reluctant to 
implement syntax changes!




Yes... Because Java often turns out to be the wrong tool and its memory
management is one of the reasons. We need to be carefull to prevent Pascal
becoming a wrong tool. However, automated memory management does have some
advantages. Nobody can deny that.


Ref counting does not use more memory! (well okay 32 bits extra to store 
the ref count for each object).



except were the source is bloated by forward declarations :)



Just order your procedures like you should order them, go go!! :)

[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~/fpc2/fpc/compiler grep ';forward;' *.pas
browlog.pas:procedure writesymtable(p:Tsymtable);forward;
pexpr.pas:function sub_expr(pred_level:Toperator_precedence;accept_equal : 
boolean):tnode;forward;
pstatmnt.pas:function statement : tnode;forward;
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~/fpc2/fpc/compiler grep '; forward;' *.pas
browcol.pas:  function GetDefinitionStr(def: tdef): string; forward;
scanner.pas:function read_expr : string; forward;
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~/fpc2/fpc/compiler

Wow! 5 forward declarations in the entire compiler source. Yeah, bloat
indeed :)




its a bit more than that. Forward declarations include the class 
interfaces too in the type section. EG under delphi :



uses
  Classes, SysUtils;

type

  TMyObject = class (Tobject)
  private
  count : integer;  
  public
  constructor create; override;
  destructor destroy; override; 
  end;

implementation

constructor TConfigureBuildLazarusDlg.Create(AnOwner: TComponent);
begin
  inherited Create(AnOwner);
  inc (count);  
end;

destructor TConfigureBuildLazarusDlg.Destroy;
begin
  inherited Destroy;
end;

end.



would become under Rad Pascal:

uses
  Classes, SysUtils;

 TMyObject = class (Tobject)
private
count : integer;
public
constructor create; override;
inherited Create(AnOwner);
inc (count);

destructor destroy; override;   
inherited Destroy;


Notice its at least 50% less code to write.


jamie.

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Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

2005-06-02 Thread Daniël Mantione



Op Thu, 2 Jun 2005, schreef Jamie McCracken:

 Daniël Mantione wrote:
 
  Op Thu, 2 Jun 2005, schreef Jamie McCracken:
 
 
 Daniël Mantione wrote:

 
 
  Ok! We'll be happy to assist anyone doing interresting developments with
  Free Pascal. Keep in mind though that implementing ideas can take a lot
  more time that thinking out ideas.
 
  The Free Pascal parser is indeed manual craftmanship. Some experimenting
  was done using yacc in the past but a handwritten parser turned out to be
  the best choice. The parser units start with the letter p, for example
  pexpr.pas is the expression parser.

 You've done it the hard way - no wonder developer's are reluctant to
 implement syntax changes!

Depends on your definition of hard way. The parser is fast and
flexible. Ask Carl Eric Codere what the exact problems with Yacc were. But
it's been there, done that, didn't work.

  Yes... Because Java often turns out to be the wrong tool and its memory
  management is one of the reasons. We need to be carefull to prevent Pascal
  becoming a wrong tool. However, automated memory management does have some
  advantages. Nobody can deny that.

 Ref counting does not use more memory! (well okay 32 bits extra to store
 the ref count for each object).

Yes, but it has its own problems. Think of an object having a reference to
itself (think of a ringbuffer with 1 object in the ring or so). Welcome in
the real world.

Perhaps (likely) there is a solution, perhaps (likely) there are more
problems. No expert here.

 would become under Rad Pascal:

 uses
Classes, SysUtils;

   TMyObject = class (Tobject)
  private
  count : integer;
  public
  constructor create; override;
   inherited Create(AnOwner);
   inc (count);

  destructor destroy; override;
   inherited Destroy;


 Notice its at least 50% less code to write.

Yes. Too bad it is not possible. One of the problems you can expect is
with cyclic units. Normally the interfaces of the units form a tree, which
define how they get called. So the compiler can compile the interfaces in
the depth first order, then it can do the implementations in any order it
wants, cyclic uses in implementations are no longer a problem, as the
compiler known how to call the procedures in those units.

From the good taste department, it breaks the interface/implementation
principle. The unit principle guarantees that libraries are being written
so that one only needs to look at the interface, not the implementation to
know how a library works. It saves a few keystrokes, but makes it a lot
harder for the user of the library to understand it.

Daniël


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RE: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion

2005-06-02 Thread Jose Manuel



 Well I will typically spend about 25% of my development time with
 forward declarations, doing loads of try finaly blocks to free memory
 and other things instead of implementing my application.

 jamie.

Well, you are quite a machine. If you say so, sure it's so, but that's not
the problem. Anyhow there are tools, editors, etc. that can easy that fact
if you feel confortable with then.
I usually spend under 5% typing my code, I spend a lot longer thinking what
I have to type, and I DO spend quite longer debugging and improving my code.
And herebye I challenge any C Coder to maintain a program faster and neater
than in Pascal (I say C, 'cause your comments about Python and other script
language I assume it's a joke).

Anyway as Michael would say, a can of worms has been opened and we are not
going anywhere. If you want to stick to Python, stick to it, but Pascal is
another thing.

JMR

P.S.:
BTW: Never heard of anybody doing serious programming in GNU Pascal (and I
know many a programmer doing serious programming in FPC and even VP)



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Re: [fpc-devel] Range check error in cthreads (make debug)

2005-06-02 Thread Tomas Hajny

Date sent:  Thu, 2 Jun 2005 10:30:25 +0200
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org
Subject:[fpc-devel] Range check error in cthreads (make debug)
Send reply to:  FPC developers' list fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]


 If i compile rtl with debug info (make debug), then i get at start of
 my multithreaded app:
 
 An unhandled exception occurred at $08062B3C :
 ERangeError : Range check error
   $08062B3C  CGETCURRENTTHREADID,  line 310 of ../unix/cthreads.pp
   $0805ADAD  GETCURRENTTHREADID,  line 136 of
   /mnt/progs/devel/fpc/rtl/inc/thread.inc $08140367  COMMONINIT,  line
   1519 of /mnt/progs/devel/fpc/rtl/objpas/classes/classes.inc

Thank you, should be fixed now.

Tomas

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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion




the C-style operators += etc. should better be written as  +:= since C has =
as assignment, Pascal has := as assignment symbol
   



:= means assign to, += means add to etc., I cannot find any
inconsistency here.

 

Also, += and such were created to make it easier to convert C code.  If 
you change this to +:= you do essentially two things:


1) Break existing code
2) Destroy any of the original purpose and usefulness of the thing in 
question.



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[fpc-devel] Extend the libraries people!




What makes python interesting are the many classes it offers by default
to perform standard tasks, especially in the text treatment department;
regular expression stuff etc.

The same goes for most languages; Mostly it's not the language syntax
that determines the productivity factor; it's the number of standard
available routines.



Exactly!  Thanks for brining this up.  If you just want more people to 
use Pascal, just


1) Make it simple
2) Have lots of nice tools
3) And most of all, have lots of units to do different thing

It's the libraries, functions, objects, etc. that really attract 
people.  Why do you think Java got so popular?  It certainly wasn't 
because it was lightning fast or easy to write.  It was because the 
standard libraries that come with Java (despite Sun's insistance to 
try to talk about the two synonomously) were so extensive.  Ever since C 
and its concept of including libraries, it's been obvious that this is 
the main attraction for people.




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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion

2005-06-02 Thread Hans-Peter Diettrich

Jamie McCracken wrote:

 I don't understand, why are these forward declarations so evil ?
 
 
 More code bloat, more typing and they get in the way. They dont give me
 anything useful in return.
 
 
  Please show me a piece of code where they are in the way. Code bloat? 
  They don't cost anything in the executable.
 
 thats not what I meant! I mean its source code bloat to me especially
 when trying to follow code with large classes in it.

I typically follow code by jumping to the definition of variables or
subroutines, and back again. I rarely read source code sequentially,
because the static arrangement of code pieces is different from their
logical relationship.

DoDi


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[fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion



What matters is designing und understanding the code, not writing 
it. I spend less than 10% of my time at work in actually _writing_ 
code, so even if someone can type in his/her code twice as fast, the 
maximum (s)he would gain would be five percent in overall performance.



you are missing the point!

Whather you can implement something faster in another language is not 
the issue. I am arguing for less verbose syntax without decreasing 
the clarity of the code in delphi/pascal and that is logically gonna 
improve productivity without taking anything away.



This is only 'logical' if the hypothesis

productivity is inversely related to the syntax verbosity

is correct.

I question the correctness of the hypothesis, and I assume, so does
Florian...



I think the point of this is being lost on me.  We're talking about 
changing things like philosophy (top-down design), and syntax.  So are 
we talking about just creating another new language?  I mean that's what 
it sounds like.  Why not take Python or C# and add Pascal syntax or 
philsophies to it instead of adding these to Pascal?


Maybe some people just really don't like Pascal that much.

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Re: [fpc-devel] type discussion





Well pascal in the only mainstream langugae that does that - I dont 
see the pont and it aint magic.


Jamie, now I KNOW I don't understand where you're coming from

Pascal?  Mainstream?  ;)


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[fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-l] type discussion