In a message dated 04 Jan 96, Vladimir Carlos of 3:711/963 wrote:

 GC>> I think the future of Pascal may lie with its next evolution - just as
 GC>> Turbo
 GC>> Pascal gave Pascal new life in the 80's - IMHO Delphi with its Object
 GC>> Pascal will keep Pascal (at least in some form) alive and very
 GC>> popular.

 VC> Can you tell me what IMHO Delphi and Object Pascal is all about?

Well, IMHO is BBS Acronymn for "In My Humble Opinion" - i.e. the
view is mine
but feel free to disagree.

Delphi is Borland's RAD (Rapid Application Development) Platform for
Windows (and shortly Windows 95 - though it does perform better under Win
95/NT anyway but a specific 32-bit version is under beta). In simpliest
terms it sort of like joing Visual Basic and Borland Pascal for Windows -
though it goes a lot further than either package.

The programming language component of Delphi is Object Pascal in which the
Components, Forms and even Delphi itself is written. Think of it as the
next generation of TP/BP rather than the next version. The majority of
TP/BP stuff transfers okay but there are a number of differences - a few
that come to mind:

    (a) Result variable in all functions

    (b) Functions can return complex types

    (c) compound With Statements

    (d) Class & Message are reserved words

    (e) Class replaces Object and the OOP is far less intrusive than OWL or TV.

    Plus of course the Visual Development advantages - a working Windows
program can easily be developed without writing a line of code :-]

And the forthcoming Delphi 32 has

    (a) Long Strings (Up to 4GB)

    (b) UniCode Support resulting in Wide Chars & Wide Strings

    (c) Increased performance

    (d) 386 BASM


     -Glenn Crouch
      Sysop, Algorithms Anonymous (090) 93-3145 (Australia)
      3:690/643.3
      esbglenn{at}acslink.net.au

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