In a conversation between me and others in a newsgroup thread a while
back, I made some comment about not caring for the Object Pascal syntax
in some way. Someone asked:
> If you dislike Pascal so much, please explain what you like and
why.
This is a slightly more detailed answer to the question than I presented
at the time:
I actually like Delphi / OP, just not as much as I could. In case
you are interested, here are some things I wish were different:
- I find the begin and end keywords to be needlessly verbose.
- Control structures could have matching, non-optional blocks… like
Modula-2 or (!) VB. if .. then .. endif would be more concise than "if
.. then begin .. end", and make it easier to read code and prevent
bugs. The whole begin/end thing really belies Pascal’s origin as a teaching
language. When you write 2-page programs, it doesn’t matter if begin/end
is verbose. - Case insensitivity permits sloppy coding.
- Now that I’ve used Java quite extensively, I am really sold on garbage
collection as a Very Good Thing for large-scale projects. - I wish there was a more effective structure for handling large amounts
of code, other than the flat module structure. Java packages are nice. - I wish the RTTI covered everything about the class, not just published
properties. - Why do we have to do:
try
try
// yada
except
// yada
end;
finally
// yada
end;
rather than
try
// yada
except
// yada
finally
// yada
end;
Borland could easily allow the latter, short and clear syntax.
The underlying point to all of this is that Object Pascal is Borland’s language;
they can do anything they want with it. The things above are within their
power to change; it’s not like that are complying with a standard.
But do I really want them to change all this? Probably not. Would I choose
OP for my code if it weren’t for the great stuff around it (the IDE, VCL,
weatlh of third party components, etc.)? Definately not.
In my opinion, the core strength of Delphi is not the language. It’s the IDE, VCL,
lightning-fast compiler, linker, and overall environment which have made it possible for Delphi to have
a vast array of available plugin components. Delphi has attracted a remarkable
number of vendors of high quality components. Using those components as well
as Delphi’s (object-oriented) core features, it is often possible to build a working solution in Delphi
much sooner than would be possible with another tool… and that is what I
like most about Delphi.