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

[Bob Butler <bob@work.com>]

On 2016-03-16, Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> wrote:
> Bob Butler writes on comp.lang.ada:
>> 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.
>
> The fact that FreePascal supports some ISO or standards is relevant and
> useful *if* it can reject non-compliant programs.

Oh really? You can't tell by gcc. What incantation do you use to even get
all the warnings? If you ask they will tell you it's not the compiler's job
to catch incorrect code. If you give it correct code it will probably
produce a representative executable. If not, all bets are off.

I already explained some possible reasons for FPC's non-portability. I think
my paragraph above explains things clearly enough and I don't agree with
your statement here. It is valuable to have a toolchain that supports
standards whether or not it also supports a superset. If it can warn on
extensions so much the better. If not, it's more than worth price paid.


>    But in its list of
> compiler options I see only:
>
>   -M<x>  Set language mode to <x>  
>       -Mfpc      Free Pascal dialect (default)  
>       -Mobjfpc   FPC mode with Object Pascal support  
>       -Mdelphi   Delphi 7 compatibility mode  
>       -Mtp       TP/BP 7.0 compatibility mode  
>       -Mmacpas   Macintosh Pascal dialects compatibility mode  
>
> and no ISO 7185 or ISO 10206.

You could ask the right people if you're interested enough. If not, not.

Bob