WTF

Yes, if you look out the window you can see it's grave.
WTF does 'dead' mean in this context?

Dead as in, going to be revived soon!

:)

(maybe?)

"The dead walks..." from Resident Evil
"She is not dead, she sleeps..." from Queen of the damned

"He's dead Jim, but not as we know it!"

Delphi isn't dead. Borland is working on Delphi 9:
http://delphi.about.com/library/weekly/aa083104a.htm

There is also the FreePascal compiler, wich supports Delphi:
http://www.freepascal.org/

That post is pretty much a joke, but Delphi is an IDE and programming language is Object Pascal, if you did not know it [smile]
And no, I don't need another programming language - had enough [smile] Thanks anyway, Anonymous Poster!

I really don't get all this talk about Delphi being dead. It's almost as if some people want Delphi to be dead...

As long as there are still people programming in Delphi, it will not die and I happen to know quite a few people who still use it as their only IDE/compiler.

Delphi 9 looks incredible and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm sure the way we will write applications in the future will be quite different from how we do it now. I don't know if .NET is what we will all end up using, but whatever it is, I'm sure Delphi will be around.

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Original post by Anonymous Poster Delphi was never alive. Geeks.

How amusing.

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As long as there are still people programming in Delphi, it will not die and I happen to know quite a few people who still use it as their only IDE/compiler.

I'm one of them ;)

And aslong as people like me use Borland C Builder, Delphi won't die as it is the backbone that makes C Builder more powerful than all MS compilers.

I seriously doubt thats the main reason though. However from a business/industry standpoint it is an encouraging point. However, there is more to Object Pascal developers than meerly that. And it is something that I find that is sorely underestimated in the past and to this day.

This is a slightly modified version of

Top 10 reasons why Pascal is better than C

found at:
http://www.pascal-central.com/top10.html

Top 10 reasons why Pascal/Delphi is better than C

1. Delphi, noble language as it is, was named after the famous ancient Greek oracle Delphi. C was named after a Sesame Street character.

2. Pascal's inventor, Nicholas Wirth, and parameter passing conventions coalesce to form a nifty pun: You can pronounce his name by reference: Wirth or by value: Worth. C was invented at Bell Labs, where they wouldn't know a joke from a transistor.

3. There is only one Pascal, as defined by Wirth, while C has (shall we say?) several fathers: Kernighan & Ritchie, Harbison & Steele, Barnum & Bailey, and Laurel & Hardy.

4. In C, the following variable names are all different: thesame, TheSame, theSame, and THESAME. Nuff said.

5. In Pascal, when you fool with a pointer or handle, you know you're fooling around with a pointer or handle. In C, you could be fooling around with anything. C is the ultimate language for computational promiscuity.

6. In Pascal, we *know* how big an integer is.

7. C is used by liberal, Democratic, Mike Dukakis types of programmers. Delphi/Pascal is a favorite of the GOP. Hey, we know what the big language at Berkeley is, don't we?

8. C is the only language in the civilized world that still refuses to recognize the $ sign for a hexadecimal constant and continues to promote that base pretender to the throne: 0x00.

9. Delphi/Pascal has well-defined rules for Scope, while C appears to be using Listerine. This accounts for the medicine breath of many C programmers.

10. In C, you can do this:
for(;P("\n").R-;P("|"))for(e=3DC;e-;P("_"+(*u++/8)%2))P("| "+(*u/4)%2);
In Pascal, you CAN'T do this :
for(;P("\n").R-;P("|"))for(e=3DC;e-;P("_"+(*u++/8)%2))P("| "+(*u/4)%2);

The topic of this thread was rediculous, as well as some (most) of its content. Also, speaking of "Top 10 reasons" mentioned above, I must agree with anonymous poster that half of them are really stupid. Still, C++ is more popular due to commercial stuff but as a language even though powerful, I think it has significant drawbacks for developing large applications. My major complaint is the case sensitiveness which leads to ambiguity in code (hard to understand), allows ambiguous statements like "if (a = b)" which leads to run-time errors that are difficult to find. On the other hand, Pascal language was designed to be more didactic language - to explain the user *what is going on* in the code and this makes it more suitable for big applications where a lot of people are involved. I believe both languages can be used to create exactly THE SAME thing (in the contrary to what Anonymous poster said) and if used correctly, both languages provide a good way of developing applications.
Still, I don't know if it's just me, but most C/C++ code I have seen on the Internet, including the one provided by Sun Microsystems and others (for instance, communication-related standards from ITU) - is very bad written. No or useless comments, one or two letter variables (e.g. "a, b, t, zZ, ae, gj, ...etc") and number constants integrated in the code (like "if (a>31) ja=jb+44;" -> here, what 31 and 44 mean?!) and hardly packed code makes very BAD example of C/C++ usage. So in general, my critics towards C/C++ languages usually goes to the programmers rather than to the language itself. The reason for that, I think is because there are much more C/C++ inexperienced users (compared to Pascal) due to the same commercial stuff. These users can be teachers or employees dedicated to mathematics or physics that do not have enough knowledge of writing good programs so the source code made by them is just a bunch of equations resolving some sort of problem completely wired.
As an example, I invite you to take the sources of well known OGG Vorbis file format. I've just grabbed the source, opened a random file and saw this part of code:

This code from Ogg Vorvis source illustrates each part of the critics I specified before. If you want something more convincing, here is a code from "g72x.c", a product of Sun Microsystems, which also has all the problems mentioned before:

I write all this because I hope that people finally decide to write better code (especially if they plan on releasing it to public) rather than flaming other languages (like "Top 10 reasons why Pascal is better than C"). If your handwriting is ugly it's not the pen - it's how you use it!

Edit: As an example, I also include the first part of C/C++ code translated to Pascal by our "C to Pascal compiler". In Pascal, the code is still hard to understand:

Delphi is more than alive fools!

:)

As long as I'm around, there will be at least 1 Delphi/Pascal user.

I wish Borland would make C++ Builder 7.

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Original post by Basic Delphi is more than alive fools! :) As long as I'm around, there will be at least 1 Delphi/Pascal user.

Another one is me! You're not alone!

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Original post by Lifepower Still, C++ is more popular due to commercial stuff but as a language even though powerful, I think it has significant drawbacks for developing large applications.

As a professional game developer and Delphi advocate, I use both C++ and Delphi extensively.

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My major complaint is the case sensitiveness which leads to ambiguity in code (hard to understand)

One of my pet hates about publicly available Delphi code is the inconsistency of capitalization. In one recent example, within a few lines of code I saw JPG, Jpg and jpg to reference the same variable. Choose one form and stick with it! I have always dreamt of a case-sensitive Pascal compiler that would force people to get their capitalization correct.

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, allows ambiguous statements like "if (a = b)" which leads to run-time errors that are difficult to find.

Current C++ compilers emit warnings about such code.

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Still, I don't know if it's just me, but most C/C++ code I have seen on the Internet, including the one provided by Sun Microsystems and others (for instance, communication-related standards from ITU) - is very bad written. No or useless comments, one or two letter variables (e.g. "a, b, t, zZ, ae, gj, ...etc") and number constants integrated in the code (like "if (a>31) ja=jb+44;" -> here, what 31 and 44 mean?!) and hardly packed code makes very BAD example of C/C++ usage. So in general, my critics towards C/C++ languages usually goes to the programmers rather than to the language itself. The reason for that, I think is because there are much more C/C++ inexperienced users (compared to Pascal) due to the same commercial stuff.

I see the same with publicly available Pascal code. Actually, I see fewer comments in Delphi code. C coders usually get into the habit of adding function header comment blocks. These are very rare in Delphi code. I think this is because the Delphi IDE will automatically create methods for you, but does not encourage the user to add comments.

To be fair, here is a sample of Delphi code that would scare most people.

    Y := 0;    X := 3;    Command := (Source^[1] SHL 8) + Source^[2];    Bit := 16;    WHILE (X < SourceSize) DO BEGIN      IF (Bit = 0) THEN BEGIN        Command := (Source^[X] SHL 8) + Source^[X+1];        Bit := 16;        INC(X,2)      END;      IF ((Command AND $8000) = 0) THEN BEGIN           Dest^[Y] := Source^[X];           INC(X);           INC(Y)      END      ELSE BEGIN  { command and $8000 }        Pos := ((Source^[X] SHL 4)               +(Source^[X+1] SHR 4));        IF (Pos = 0) THEN BEGIN          Size := (Source^[X+1] SHL 8) + Source^[X+2] + 15;          FOR K := 0 TO Size DO begin               Dest^[Y+K] := Source^[X+3];          end;          INC(X,4);          INC(Y,Size+1)        END        ELSE BEGIN  { pos = 0 }          Size := (Source^[X+1] AND $0F)+2;          FOR K := 0 TO Size DO               Dest^[Y+K] := Dest^[Y-Pos+K];          INC(X,2);          INC(Y,Size+1)        END; { pos = 0 }      END;  { command and $8000 }      Command := Command SHL 1;      DEC(Bit)    END { while x < sourcesize }  END;

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I write all this because I hope that people finally decide to write better code (especially if they plan on releasing it to public) rather than flaming other languages (like "Top 10 reasons why Pascal is better than C"). If your handwriting is ugly it's not the pen - it's how you use it!

True. It is usually the author who is at fault. Most of the C++ code that we write at here at work is understandable (meaningful variable names, comments, etc).

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Edit: As an example, I also include the first part of C/C++ code translated to Pascal by our "C to Pascal compiler". In Pascal, the code is still hard to understand:

What is this C to Pascal compiler that you mention? I've often thought about making such a tool, but never got past lexx and yacc.

2 Sly:

Sorry, I hate using quotes (in my opinion it lacks of respect, when replying to someone), but I'm going to talk about each point here:

1) Inconsistency of capitalization: well, in Pascal you use "MyVar" and "myVAR", your eyes hurt (or you hate it) but the program works and you are sure about it, in C++ your program may compile (if such variables ARE declared), your eyes do not hurt (and/or you do not hate it) but your program may not work properly :(
In Pascal it's matter of emotions, in C++ it's matter of how well you pay attention to the code :p

2) Statements like (a = b)
We're talking about language itself and not specific compilers, in theory a compiler does not necessarily have to warn you about this since it's completely valid code in C/C++. And not talking about "(a = b)" exactly, it can be something like "if (a = b--)", which is also correct and sometimes I've seen expressions like this in the code. I did not say it was bad, I say it can be confusing and can lead to bugs that are hard to find. You may argue about this saying there are alternatives (warnings, write better code), but the language itself allows this.

3) The "bad pascal" code you mentioned - even though the code itself is still better written than the examples I've posted, it shows the same thing I've tried to say in my previous post (see "writing bad code"). The thing is - since C/C++ is much popular, there is more public source code in C/C++. My point was that "many people write bad code".

4) About C->Pascal compiler: it's a project we've developed while developing Asphyre Sound System (which unfortunally was not released with Asphyre Component Pack due to lack of development & time). The idea was to make a compiler which can translate the entire C/C++ source files to Delphi-compatible ones. Our compiler handles work pretty well but unfortunally, not all code can be easily translated. For instance, an expression like "a-= (b--) + (c--) + (b--) + (c++)" cannot be translated to Pascal code directly and needs either temporary variables or sequential translation which was not the point of our compiler. I was going to release this project to public, but since I don't own all of it (part of it is of Hab, my partner) and we did not agree for freeware public release, I don't know what will happen with it :(