2013-09-19
2013-09-19. Pascal Programming
We all know that the first Delphi for Android was just released...
I just found out an amazing alternative, using native Android controls, and FPC/Lazarus as compiler and IDE.
It creates small .apk file: only 180 KB, from my tests!
It makes use of direct LCL access of Android native controls, so it is a great sample.
2013-03-26
2013-03-26. Pascal Programming
On the Embarcadero
forums, some user did have a perfectly sane reaction, about a non obvious
integer type cast like Int64Var := Int32Var*Int32Var, which may
overflow.
We've got to stop becoming, as one poster put it, "human pre-compilers" for Delphi.
The compiler ought to have the common sense to not need the programmer to cast the two integer values.
I respectfully think just the opposite.
;)
Such a type cast is part of the language grammar.
If you know the grammar, you will know how it will be compiled.
To be honest, you have the same in all languages, with more or less range
checking, optimization, and implicit conversion.
This is why I like Delphi: it can be mastered by any programmers, whereas truly
mastering Java or .Net needs a genius.
Delphi is just... human...
2012-11-13
2012-11-13. Pascal Programming
It is a strong-typed, compiled, cross-platform, and concurrent.
It features some nice high-level structures, like maps and strings, and still
have very low-level access to the generated code: pointers are there, in a safe
strong-typed implementation just like in pascal, and there is even a "goto",
which sounds like an heresy to dogmatic coders, but does make sense to me, at
least when you want to optimize code speed, in some rare cases.
It is created/pushed by Google, used internally by the company in their computer farms, and was designed by one of the original C creators.
