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by pjmlp9 hours ago |
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upvoteby sehugg7 hours ago|
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I recall the turning point was when id used the Watcom compiler for DOOM. Watcom had the 32-bit flat model DOS extender and were starting to add the difficult optimizations. Turbo/Borland Pascal was built for compile and link speed, not even getting a real -O option until Delphi (except for turning off range and stack checking)
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upvoteby pjmlp7 hours ago|
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Turbo Pascal 7 had them as well.
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upvoteby ape47 hours ago|
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If I remember right, it was memory safe - something C/C++ has yet to achieve.
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upvoteby pjmlp7 hours ago|
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Even PL/I, JOVIAL, and NEWP on the decade predating C had it.
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upvoteby cyberax2 hours ago|
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It was not. It just made any dynamic structures so painful that few programmers used them.

But it _did_ have range checks for array access.

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upvoteby cisc1 hours ago|
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> It just made any dynamic structures so painful that few programmers used them

What's an example of the pain?

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upvoteby cyberax38 minutes ago|
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Awkward syntax for pointer access, for one thing.
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upvoteby cisc30 minutes ago|
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What's awkward about the syntax? It's straightforward:

https://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/Florence/en/Pointe...

https://castle-engine.io/modern_pascal#_pointers

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upvoteby cyberax19 minutes ago|
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You need to dereference pointer to access the structure fields, for example.
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upvoteby applfanboysbgon8 hours ago|
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Comptime? Vastly superior toolchain? Trivial C interop? Sub-second incremental compilation in large projects? I'm not familiar with Object Pascal at all, so do correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd really be surprised if it has much of Zig's standout features.
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upvoteby mickeyp6 hours ago|
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Delphi would compile & link 2 MLOC of code on a crappy work laptop in 30 seconds to a minute. Incremental compiles were instant. So fast most developers never bothered learning the "go to next error" hotkey and just spammed F9 (compile & run) whenever they fixed a syntax error. It was that fast.

Trivial C interop - yes. Both pascal and cdecl style calling conventions.

Toolchain? Back then - yes. Today? Probably not; depends what you mean by it. It had perfect COM interop which mattered back then, and you could trivially link stuff if you wanted to. And people did.

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upvoteby mldbk3 hours ago|
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Oh my gosh! Core memories unlocked:

> most developers never bothered learning the "go to next error" hotkey and just spammed F9 (compile & run) whenever they fixed a syntax error

We didn't know we were privileged. I thought it was normal thing to have.

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upvoteby tliltocatl4 hours ago|
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Comptime here means not "compilation time", but rather ability to run some your code during compilation (i. e. compile-time metaprogramming). Pascal didn't had this.
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upvoteby applfanboysbgon3 hours ago|
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They probably know that. I specifically mentioned actual compilation time as another one of the things that's great about Zig, so it is relevant to mention. Certainly the language sounds nice from what I'm hearing. These days most languages are deeply neglecting compilation time as a feature (interpreted languages aside), so Zig is a breath of fresh air for me in that regard.
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upvoteby klipt1 hours ago|
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Golang is also designed to compile very fast.
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upvoteby applfanboysbgon1 hours ago|
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Yes, I do appreciate Go's existence as well.
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upvoteby lelanthran8 hours ago|
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> Comptime? Vastly superior toolchain? Trivial C interop? Sub-second incremental compilation in large projects?

No comptime, but everything else, sure, Turbo Pascal (and then Delphi) had.

Maybe it'll blow your mind (not sure if you find this impressive or not), but Turbo Pascal had sub-second compilation per module on large modules back on my 486 with 4MB of RAM.

Sure, Zig has more features than Pascal, but not the ones you listed (except, of course, for comptime).

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upvoteby andsoitis7 hours ago|
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> (and then Delphi) had.

And still does. You can get the latest version of Delphi (including a free version for non-commercial use) here: https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi

It rocks.

You're also not limited to Delphi. You can use Oxygene https://www.remobjects.com/elements/oxygene/language

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upvoteby lelanthran6 hours ago|
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> You're also not limited to Delphi. You can use Oxygene https://www.remobjects.com/elements/oxygene/language

If you're not in the mood to rent your compiler, you can also try Lazarus.

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upvoteby andsoitis5 hours ago|
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Sure. The rent does give you polish, however.

Also, for non-commercial use, Delphi is free.

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upvoteby pjmlp8 hours ago|
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Comptime is the only thing going for it.

Object Pascal compilers were already super fast in MS-DOS hardware!

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upvoteby LoganDark6 hours ago|
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> Apple decided to refocus from Object Pascal into C++

IIRC Apple went and made Objective-C(/C++) and then eventually Swift. Not sure if they actually embraced C++ all that much - did they really?

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upvoteby pjmlp6 hours ago|
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Completely off the charts.

I am talking about Apple after Jobs was kicked out.

You missed the part where NeXT licensed Objective-C from Stepstone, Apple bought NeXT as last survival action before bankruptcy, and OS X sprung out of NeXTSTEP.

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upvoteby LoganDark5 hours ago|
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Thanks!
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