Re: Ada vs Delphi?

[aratel@total.net (Andre Ratel)]

-= About pointers =--------------------

On Mon, 09 Aug 1999 01:38:17 GMT, paulyg@clara.net (Paul Groves)
wrote:

>Delphi (Pascals) pointer types are just like Ada's access
>types so the same is possible in both languages.
>Delphi does use pointers all over the place for its
>interfacing stuff -- VCL.  The poster was just asking about
>scientific programming so this shouldn't really be a big
>problem.  

For my current work, I don't use pointers. I generally tend to avoid
them (but maybe I'm missing something). The only case where I 
would use pointers is for sorting.


-= Overloading =--------------------

>>  Ada supports overloading of operators, functions, and procedures.
>Not always a good thing.

Delphi now support overloading of methods (since version 4, I think)
but not with operators (at least not to my knowledge).


-= Platforms =--------------------

>>  Programs written in Ada are more likely to be portable to other
>>architectures.  Delphi lives only on PC's.

Borland is said to be working on a Linux version of Delphi.


-= Language definition and manuals =--------------------

>>  Ada is more fully defined.  
>From what you say below, you mean better documented?
>
>>With Ada you can refer to the language
>>reference manual regardless of which compiler you're using and get a fairly
>>explicit description of how things work.  With Delphi you must often refer
>>to trial and error.
>Borland's help files are always crap -- I'll give you that
>one.

I fully agree. Delphi's language definition is not precise enough
(Borland Pascal with Objects, v. 7 was somewhat better in this
respect). As for the manuals, they are very inequal in quality 
and the on-line help is even worst. (Some parts look like they 
have been written by Nostradamus.)

When I began working with Delphi, this was a major source of
frustration. I often found myself trying out things and writing
little notes to myself about stuff which should have been
documented. I had the impression of doing part of Borland's
job instead of working on my own problems.  (And they call
this RAD!) Now, at last, I think (and I hope) I understand all
I need to know to do my own stuff.

I stuck with Delphi instead of moving to C because I really
enjoy using an Algol-like syntax (one might say that I'm a
die hard Algolic :-).


-= Pascal =--------------------

>I'm not an advocate of Delphi - personally I think it sucks.
>Someone should write a better 'Visual Pascal'  Then again,
>I'm not a fan of Ada.  The only *truely* well-defined
>language that I ENJOY using is Pascal...

Have you looked into Component Pascal? It is the latest
brainchild of Niklaus Wirth (the inventor of Pascal, Modula,,
and Oberon).  

The product is named Black Box. I have dowloaded it last 
Sunday (about 6 MB) and installed it on my hard disk (it 
takes about 17 MB if you install everything, including 
documentation, tutorials, examples, and database support).
I went through the Guided Tour, looked at the Map Contents,
and read part of the Black Box Advantage. There's also an
Appendix listing the differences between ordinary Pascal
and Component Pascal (there are differences).

Component Pascal is presented as being one step ahead of
Object Programming in terms of modularity, reusability, scalability,
and robustness . It seems they tried to bring into a single language
all the good things about Pascal, Modula, Ada, Eiffel, and even Java. 
I must say that, after reading a large part of the rationale behind
the language, I was very impressed (but my background is in 
Physics, not Computer Science). 

How all this has been implemented into the product remains to 
be seen. I would need to work with the product for many months 
to get a good grasp of its strengths and limitations.

Anyhow, I you want to have a look at it, you can get  it at
   http://www.oberon.ch/prod/BlackBox/
It is free as long as you don't use it for a commercial product
and, besides the PC version, you can also download the beta
release of a Mac version.

I anyone has tried Component Pascal, I would appreciate his/her
comments.

	Andre

PS: The post you were replying to didn't reach my ISP's
        newsserver.  This is why I had to include in this text my
        comments about  the original post. I apologize.