Re: Object Pascal vs Ada -- which is better for a hobbyist?

[Bob Butler <bob@work.com>]

On 2016-03-15, Randy Brukardt <randy@rrsoftware.com> wrote:
> "Bob Butler" <bob@work.com> wrote in message 
> news:nc8pfr$bl8$2@gioia.aioe.org...
>> On 2016-03-14, Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote:
>>> On 2016-03-14 19:19, Jeffrey R. Carter wrote:
>>>> On 03/14/2016 08:29 AM, girobusan@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>> I'm a hobbyist. I've chosen Pascal (Free Pascal) because it is:
>>>>>
>>>>> a) Cross platform
>>>>> b) Has a cross-platform GUI builder (Lazarus) and it's pretty nice
>>>>>
>>>>> I can develop an app on linux, than just drop my sources to Mac and get 
>>>>> a working Mac app. That's amazing.
>>>>
>>>> I can do the same with Ada. Indeed, I had a GUI Ada program that 
>>>> compiled and
>>>> ran on Windows and Linux with no code changes a couple of decades ago. 
>>>> As usual,
>>>> other languages are playing catch up.
>>>
>>> I have Turbo Pascal sources from early 90's. Would they compile?
>>
>> Sure, you can run Turbo Pascal under DOS on real hardware or emulated.
>>
>>> Something tells me they won't. Ada sources from the same period of time
>>> still do.
>>
>> There's a little bit of a difference there. Turbo Pascal was a proprietary
>> language not a standardized one.
>
> What real Pascal implementation is a "standardized language"? 

My point was you can't compare proprietary languages with standardized
ones. Of course if you use a proprietary language supported only by one
vendor you are putting all your eggs in one basket by writing code that has
a limited lifetime.

> There are lots of Pascal standards, but no implementation really follows
> any of them (in part because most of those standards are too limited for
> practical work). 

I am not sure if that is true. It could be FreePascal does support the full
standard (and there are indeed ISO standards to follow) but also OO and GUI
addons. I think a lot of useful code could be written to the standard. It's
just that many people want the OO support and the GUI stuff so they tend
towards specific implementations. I think it's ill advised for businesses
but indeed there are still some using Delphi believe it or not. Most of the
Pascal written today outside Delphi is hobbyist stuff. FPC is actually a
very nice implementation. It's not portable because nothing else is left,
with or without a standard or two.

> (That's one of the reasons behind the Ada trademark and the strong push to 
> conformity assessment for Ada - Ada compilers actually implement the 
> standard.)

I certainly understand the value in that. But in practice the landscape in
Ada is not so much different from that in Pascal. As you well know there has
been a lot of consolidation lately in what was already a very small market.
It may not mean a whole lot that Ada is standardized when there is only one
vendor who tracks the latest standard...

Bob