pascal disadvantages

to the high-level-language-disadventage :
but you can still include assembler-code or .obj-files from other compilers, so this shouldn't be a very big problem. you can use pascal and use asm if you want control or even more speed.

columbo666, you're correct, This feature is widely implemented but still very compiler-specific. However, as soon as assembler and .OBJ files are used, you're no longer using the actual high-level language, so I'd choose not to count it as advantage or disadvantage.

also true. tmt & free-pascal let you decide over many code generation-options just like visual c++ or other c-compilers.

but an definitive advantage is :

pascal has style *grin*

aminmohsalih, soon two weeks have passed. Please grade the question.

I believe the answer is graded, not the question... :)

Disadvantages: Slower then C++/ASM, not nearly as much support, most compilers are 16-bit (Not 32-bit) OOP (Object orianted programming) is not nativly supported (But it's in most compilers) and, mainly, the compilers are way behind C++ compilers.

Advantages: Easyier to read/debug. Get FreePascal, and you counter *MOST* disadvantages of pascal.  www.freepascal.org

>>>Finally, if you ever manage to produce any kind of graphics they will indeed be very simplistic and
really the ones you would see about 7-8 years ago in computers.

Not true at all. I've been using Direct3D in FreePascal for a while now, as it's eaiser to debug then in C++. When compleated, I port it to C++ and compile in VC++ for a bit more speed.  But, units like GraphiX alow loading of bmp, jpg, pcx, even png graphic files with ease. It even supports .avi movies, and many types of fonts.  And it's compatable with dos32/windows32/linux, so porting code is nice.

Also, look at all the free-ware pascal compilers. If a language is loved so much, people are making all sorts of compilers for it, there must be somthing there.

Just thought I'd make a few last posts on EE, since I'm being drove off. :D

I would be very interested if you linked me to a pascal-based program which makes use of graphics
I apologise if i caused inconveience with the things i said.

dimlek, have a look at these few...

Commercial:
http://www.ageofwonders.com/ (Delphi)
http://www.no2games.com/ Miniverse (MiniGolf Master) (Delphi)

Freeware:
http://www.volny.cz/pausp/pascal.htm (BP7)
http://members.surfeu.de/noon/ (BP7)
http://bsn.ch/avonwyss/programming/gui/ (BP7)

Need more?

Graphics in pascal?

http://programmierer.freepage.de/graphix

This is GraphiX, a great graphic lib. for pascal. Load damn near any image type, alpha blending, scaling, rotation, 3-D basics, even an .avi unit I never figured out.

http://members.yline.com/~tom_at_work/index.html
DirectX for pascal.  Nuff said there. :D NOTE: Pascal can't support ActiveX controlls in any compiler i know of, meaning that DirectMusic can't be used. Bummer, huh?  Well, if you write Pascal code using DirectX, pas2c normaly does a good job, and with a little clean up, you can compile on VC++ 6.0 or better for the speed. Best of both worlds.  

Also, FreePascal has openGL support, but I have no idea on openGL, so, oh well.

I'd show you my demos, but... they died.....

Note:  Geocities loves to eat things. I learned this. And 26.4k's take way too long to upload. So, all I got, my old dos demos. And even then, not the better ones like tetris or the shooter game.  But my zelda clone is there, it's in dos because dos listens to you, you have to ask windows to do stuff. :D I'm porting it to windows, biggest problem is the keyboard handler. DirectInput is great, but I have to make a wrapper for it to work with my code as-is.


http://www.geocities.com/ozzy_1996/Programing.html

in the downlaods, you'll find some. I'm working on getting it back into shape, but I can't log onto yahoo 12 the time it seems. Oh well.  Basicly, if it's a bit map, I can blit it, so... What more is there realy? Just simple tricks after that, unless your into lighting. (I have a nice post on yahoo about it)

While your at it, here's a fair sound unit: http://www.uni-ulm.de/~s_cwaech/Sbplay.htm  May need some tweaking to get to run. And I wouldn;t ask about sond here in EE, they get upset.

Nice to see someone put effort into an answer, huh?

Funny, I had ALL of Avon's links highlighted, as I was there before. If two people been to ALL the same links...that's not good. Not many good graphic sites in pascal then, huh? His middle freeware link is also good for sound.

hehe thank you guys for your help even though no points were assigned ad we got a bit off-subject.
I am not very experienced with pascal, i am reading Savitch's Turbo Pascal 7 book which is for begginers and all the examples and assignments it has untill now were only concerning input and output of tect data. I had no idea pascal was so capable.Thanks

again some advertisement :

have a look at http://royalinc.cjb.net
you can download there some graphical demos. entierly written in turbo pascal. i suggest downloading "3rd reality" (800k). if you found that graphics good enough, you can stop searching. if you think, there should be possible more, try downloading "heartquake" from "iguana". you'll find this proggy in most ftp-searchers or on "scene.org". i think this is the max with turbo/borland pascal.

aminmohsalih, is the question answered to your satisfaction? Please give us some feedback or grade the answers.

Can i give some feedback from my side?
The guys who answered my questions as well as annimohsalih's even though they wouldn't get any points for them are true profrssionals and experts.
They care for the circle of knowledge and information not for some silly points.
It's all about ethics and principles.

PASCAL??? What is pascal???


Now gimmy the points...

Good answer, good answer!!!

Hey, I remember you, whatboy, arn't you like one of the tops in the area?  Been a while since I was here.

Am I???

I thought it was the undesired ones list...

Syntactic disadvantages of Pascal, IMO:

1.  crappy "for" statement
2.  variable declarations are awkward

Those are my bones to pick with Pascal (as opposed to C).  The development time lost to these minor inconveniences is more than made up by the fact that Pascal is a helluva lot easier to debug.

The "for" statemement I agree (even though the C(++)-version is IMO too flexible since you can du helluva lot not realted to the actual loop in the three parts), but the variables I think are quite good as they are. I really appreciate the compiler knowing exactly about my variables and their types, so that some stupid errors get recognized quickly.

Wow, I agreee with Avon, amazing. Yea, the C++ for is a little too flexable for my tastes. It just saves 1 or so line(s) of code but looks sooo ugly, too.

Oh, I like the C++ switch better then pascals Case.

And other programmers don;t laft at you when you use C++ compared to Pascal... :-(

My problem variable declarations in Pascal is not so much the style, but the fact that you can't define variables inside a block.

Now let me bitch about C a bit.

1. You can't declare functions within a function!  This is very useful in keeping your code clean and namespaces safe.  If I write (say) a quicksort function, I should be able to put the support routines inside the quicksort, where they are safely shielded from those who shouldn't care about them.  I do this all the time in Pascal and really miss it when I am coding in C.

2.  Why the #$%&^ did they came up with "0x" for hex numbers?  "$" is much easier to read and sexier.

3.  Case sensitivity sucks.  It only contributes to even more obfuscated code.

4.  I don't care what anyone says, Object Pascal is a stronger and more soundly designed OOP language than C++.  The concept of a "property" is lacking in C++.

5.  Portability, my #$%*%.  Portability has to do with the implementations of a language, not the language itself.

6.  Lower level?  Maybe a bit, but not enough to make a huge difference.  Again, it depends on the implementation of the compiler, not just the language.  Delphi has been shown to produce slightly faster code than C++ Builder.  But Visual C++ has been shown to produce slightly faster code than both of these.  It really doesn't depend all that much on the language...Microsoft just happens to have a slightly more powerful compiler backend than Borland.


I do like to use C in some cases, Pascal in others.  It depends on the project or my mood.

I do find myself silently laughing at the fly-by-night C++ programmers who automatically think they are better than me.  Someday, these people will probably give up programming due to a failed struggle with a wet paper bag.  They just don't get it yet...its not about what language you use;  the language doesn't define the programmer.  Good programming transcends language;  just as intelligence transcends a spoken language.

The exception is Visual Basic.  I will laugh in the face of any man who touts that.

i'm coding in bp,tp,tc,vc and vb ! vb is definitly not as fast as other programming languages (graphics is especially slow if you don't use directX), but its really okay for db-things. you're more flexible than with acces, but much faster than with c++ etc.
and vb is ideal for a beginner. it's easy and you see fast results.

Now I think there is really much variance in answers. Amin has managed to start the closest to holy wars in EE. So I think I will chatter a little:
* Any comparison of Pascal to C, not C++, is at least unfair. OOP, and a lot of other concepts are common in today's Pascals (notably Free Pascal and Delphi) but not in C
* Most of the disadvantages spoken of before are due to the specific compiler mentioned or some times, due to lack of experience of the answerer:
- OOP is not natively supported: IMO, OOP is supported *better* in Object Pascal than C++. With single inheritance and interfaces, they avoided most of the complicated problems of C++. The same step was taken by Sun in the creation of Java from C++.
- Most current compilers are 32-bit certainly. Delphi 2 was the first 32bit Delphi and we are now in Delphi 6!
- More platforms support C than Pascal definitely. But Pascal exists on a wider range than expected. Just look at Free Pacscal compiler (Dos/WIndows/Linux/OS/2/FreeBSD) or GNU Pascal, which goes anywhere GNU C goes (takes advantage of it!).
- Graphics. I think this was well answered above.
* Pascal is now still lagging in drivers and operating system development, that is largely because you are adding to a (huge) program that is already C.

I hope this will start world war III. It seems fit that it should start from within the WWW ;)


******************************
PASCAL??? What is pascal???
******************************

From Borland Pascal 7.0 Manuals:
*******************************************************
Hey, this is Borland Pascal. 'Impossible' is undefined.
*******************************************************

*yawn*

karouri, thanks for your posting, however I'm afraid aminmohsalih died or something, at least he/sche never wrote anything after the initial question...

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Well, I guess kaouri, scrapdog, Ozzy_98 and myself have contributed the most to answer this question. Just in case the asker does not come back (which I'm afraid will be the case).

But I proposed an answer... there... :P

aminmohsalih -->  Last login was March, 2002 and our Administrative liaison is sending Email to this user to get the open items finalized.  Unfortunately, whatboy, proposing answers such as yours violates the guidelines of this site, and I have rejected it.

Moondancer - EE Moderator

Thank you... I will sleep like a rock now that my conscience is clean...