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I was using Turbo Pascal for about 20 years, but now I have changed my computer, and I have Windows 7 now. TP does not work under it. What similar language can I use instead of TP, that will require from me to spend minimum possible time studying it.
There is FreePascal:
http://www.freepascal.org/
It appears to be supported, I'm not sure how different it is to the Borland variant though.
Delphi is another option.
If you want to run the 20 year old Turbo Pascal on Win 7, you still can.
Download DosBox, and run TurboPascal in there.
http://www.dosbox.com/
Turbo Pascal evolved into Delphi, which is still used today but might be hard to find.
Your options are probably:
Delphi
GNU Pascal
Free Pascal
FreePascal has a switch for TurboPascal compatibility (so you will have no need to change your programming habbits), and it can generate DOS, WIN32, WIN64 and other executables.
Turbo Pascal to Delphi (~ object oriented Pascal) would seem like the natural choice / progression.
Although a lot of other languages today are relatively easy to pick up as well (Python, Ruby, etc...).
Yes, the natural progression would be to change to Lazarus/Freepascal or Delphi.
I strongly agree that you can still run TP if you liked, though.
However, it is a very good opportunity for an update. C# is a programming language that was developed by the creator of Turbo Pascal/Delphi, and indeed it has many features borrowed from Object Pascal.
If you choose C# development of Mono, you can use very modern GUI such as Monodevelop and create multi-platform applications with GTK# without any effort.
http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page
http://monodevelop.com/
If you don't care about being multiplatform, you prefer to write software only for Windows, then you can choose Visual C# 2010 Express (its free):
http://www.microsoft.com/express/Downloads/#2010-Visual-CS
What kind of software do you expect to be able to write? Is this for professional development, hobby use,...?
If you are writing COTS software for Windows, I'd suggest one of the .NET languages. C# probably has the most publicly available tutorials, free code, controls, and such. Or learn Ruby and separate yourself from the crowd.
Maybe its time to learn C# or something. Its probably going to save you more time in the long run. However you could purchase embarcadero . This is a recent version of the pascal language that supports some more modern features like generics. Old pascal code bases are compatible with it. There's also oxygene which allows you to use all the advantages of .net with pascal like syntax.
There is of course also free pascal
Well, I learnt PASCAL (Turbo Pascal) during my secondary school just for OI.But I strongly recommend Free Pascal OR Delphi.
Reasons:
1.Absolutely support OOP(especially Delphi).
2.Support to compile your code by Turbo Pascal.
3.New functions:
(a).Opreator reloading.(like c++)
(b).Ansi String.(I think it is very important for NO-ENGLISH countries.
(c).IT IS A GOOD BRIGE FOR YOU TO LEARN OTHER OOP Languages like:C++,JAVA,PYTHON.
(d).The VLC(like MFC in visual c++) function is very strong,for example:Indy in Delphi(for Net programming);
4.Download Url:
http://www.freepascal.org/
http://www.embarcadero.com/cn/products/delphi
Python.
Cross platform, free, open source.
Has PyGTK, Tcl, wxWidgets and many more libraries for GUIs.
An application you write in Python will likely run well on all three main OSes (Windows, Linux, Mac) with little to no changes.
Python's syntax is similar to Pascal's but there are several important differences. For one, you don't define variables, and the types of variables are free to change. And there are no if ... then ... begin ... end statements as indentation is used.
It is also much more forgiving than Pascal syntax and type wise (not that that should be a reason for choosing a language!)
Because it is interpreted it will be slower. That can be a disadvantage for some applications, but it's usually not noticeable.
If you've learned Pascal well, then there are two ways: c++ (programming language that was written on Pascal) and Delphi (the reincarnation of Pascal).
C++ looks similar to Pascal, but it is more powerful.
Delphi uses VCL (visual components library), so you can create windowed applications very fast.
Good luck.
I'm emulating a Macintosh IIci running Mac OS 7.5.5 on it, but now I want to know, In which languages I can develop on it and where to get they?
C/C++ seems like a safe bet...
You can use the Macintosh Programmer's Workshop
Macintosh Programmer's Workshop (MPW) is a product designed specifically for professional Macintosh software developers. It brings together a comprehensive collection of development tools designed to support C, C++, and assembly-language programmers who are writing software for Mac OS 7.x/8.x/9.x. MPW is an open, configurable, and scriptable development environment which provides the flexibility to support complex software development projects for 68K and Power Macintosh systems.
Pascal is another option.
Apple had an excelent Pascal compiler for the earliests versions of Mac OS (actually, most of the API was available through Pascal calls)
Real Basic should also work on OS7 (Mac OS 7.6.1)
http://www.giantmike.com/reviews/realbasic.html
and actually Perl as well: http://www.perl.com/download.csp#mac
"For Macintosh Classic users, there
are two ways to get Perl. MacPerl is
the classic Perl port to Mac OS
Systems 7 through 9."
HyperCard and AppleScript are the two first that came to mind.
There's also the Macintosh Programmer's Workshop and CodeWarrior IDEs for programs written in C/C++.
You'll also likely want a copy of ResEdit handy.
Every time I see a discussion on software development, always someone suggests or exalts the qualities of Smalltalk, be it the beautiful language constructs or the better implementation of basically everything.
So I was curious, is anybody developing in Smalltalk? can Smalltalk actually be used to develop software on the Mac? Or what is the target platform for Smalltalk? What is the poster child for this apparently fantastic but unpopular language?
Smalltalk isn't really used for GUI application development on the Mac in any major way. The only distribution that could produce native apps was Ambrai Smalltalk, and that died in beta AFAIK. Squeak is the most popular Smalltalk variant nowadays, but you will be torn limb from limb if you release a Mac OS X app that looks like Squeak. It's worth checking out if you're interested in learning the language (which is still unique in a lot of ways), but you're probably not going to be developing OS X apps with it.
If you would like something similar, check out MacRuby. Ruby is as close as you can get to Smalltalk without actually being Smalltalk — total object orientation, dynamic, 100% message-based, heavy use of blocks, etc. MacRuby is an implementation being developed by Apple specifically for making OS X applications.
Mac OS X's native Objective-C is also heavily Smalltalk-inspired (it's basically a big chunk of Smalltalk's object system and syntax bolted onto C), but owing to its extreme C compatibility, it falls a little further from the tree.
Take a look at fscript, which is essentially a smalltalk-like language for Objective C.
Luis: do you want to do desktop application for Mac ? or you want to program in Mac? If you want to do a web application for example, you can perfectly use Squeak or Pharo. If you want to do native mac applications, you should see the Mars project for Squeak:
http://smallworks.com.ar/productos/Mars
As an example, most of the Pharo users and developers are under Mac.
http://www.pharo-project.org/home
download and try it at least for a couple of hours!
I still believe that Squeak is well worth investigating, if only to broaden your mind a little. As for the poster child for Smalltalk, it's probably Seaside.
Squeak isn't its UI. You can configure Morphic heavily (look at how similar Pharo's is to OSX, for instance). Or you can just use native widgets with wxSqueak.
This deserves some attention:
"Objective-Smalltalk was created specifically to solve practical problems that have been encountered in 25 years of Objective-C and Smalltalk use, but with a theoretical framework that solves many of these problems elegantly and minimally, rather than by bolting on special feature after special feature."
http://objective.st/
Ok, this is an interesting question to ask because everyone has a say in it.
What is your favorite library to program in for GUI's and the language that you program it in. Give a short reason why. (ex. Gtk, Qt, Windows, etc..) Just an FYI, this includes any scripting language that you program a GUI in Python, Perl etc...
Frankly I've always done Gtk in C, but I'm starting to warm up to Qt in C++ with the new KDE. I've never been a big fan of Windows programming.
ChrisW. stated that I did not give a reason for Gtk/Qt so here goes. I started with Gtk because when I started programming GUI's I was working in Linux and there was more Gtk information available. Started utilizing Qt when I started working more in KDE but really the move to Qt was based on trying to move to C++ and learn more languages. I've never been a fan of basic Windows programming, but I do enjoy a little DirectX now and then :P
Recently I had the opportunity to work with both wxWindows and QT, while some time ago I wrote some small programs using FLTK and Gtk. My conclusion is that widget libraries tend to be very similar; each one has its strenghts and its quirks.
Instead of advocating a specific library, then, I would like to advocate the use of high level languages in GUI programming: the development cycle is way faster and GUI programs are rarely CPU bound, so the performance hit is rarely a problem.
If a GUI program has to perform some intense computations, just develop a core library in C or C++, but keep the interface in Python or whatever other interpreted language.
People like to bash Swing for being old, slow and ugly, but it's just not true. Swing is mature, is faster than ever on Java SE 6/10, looks decent enough, and is tolerable to program. Above all, I've found Java + Swing to be the most trouble-free cross-platform combination. It also works remarkably seamlessly with Jython (Python on JVM).
SWT could also be an option, but so far I've been happy with Swing.
I realise you're focusing on application GUIs but if you want a quick, powerful and fun way to visualize anything on your computer, you can't go past Processing
From the site:
Processing is an open source
programming language and environment
for people who want to program images,
animation, and interactions. It is
used by students, artists, designers,
researchers, and hobbyists for
learning, prototyping, and production.
It is created to teach fundamentals of
computer programming within a visual
context and to serve as a software
sketchbook and professional production
tool. Processing is an alternative to
proprietary software tools in the same
domain.
WPF in particular, and XAML in all its reincarnations (WPF, Silverlight, Moonlight).
C# on top of .Net 3.5/Mono: $0
Visual Studio Express/MonoDevelop: $0
Being able to tell the designer "make my program pretty" and continue coding features: priceless.
I liked writing to video memory under DOS: for an animated game (i.e. an Asteroids clone), that was as fast (performant) as I knew how to do it (certainly faster that using the BIOS API).
This is really a somewhat subjective question, so there is no best or correct answer to it. The following is based on my (limited) experience:
I personally like wxWidgets with PLT Scheme for writing simple but flexible GUIs. There are much more advanced toolkits, but I usually do not need their features. wxWidgets is flexible and the Scheme interface follows Scheme traditions of being powerful with a relatively simple structure. I like the fact that wxWidgets is portable, and yet tries not to actually draw its own widgets, but can use native or common toolkits of the environment it is used under. It is written in C++ but I never used its C++ interface.
That is not to say that in my opinion Scheme will generally be the optimal language to write your application in. In fact there are many kinds of applications I would not write in Scheme, even though I like the language. But regarding the GUI programming part, that is my favourite because of its straight-forwardness, and the way that a functional language like Scheme goes well with declarative-style GUI programming.
Of course you will not have the same level of control when using that as when having your program involved in every stage of the window construction and input reaction, by using an event loop (such as with Win32API or Xt/Intrinsics). But that is not always convenient and often unnecessary, and seems to become decreasingly common.
Note: The wxWindows toolkit was renamed wxWidgets, but my installation of a rather recent version of PLT Scheme still comes with the older wxWindows. I am not sure whether there is an updated package of wxWidgets available or if it is going to be included in a future version of PLT Scheme.
Qt4 without question for me. Now that it has an LGPL license it makes sense for all kinds of applications that previously weren't possible. Additionally, it changes C++ in ways that dramatically improve the experience of using the language. (Things like a foreach and forever loop, atomic operations on integers, and memory management)
Gtk and is the primary window-drawing graphical subsystem I have experience working with (and is therefore my favorite XD).
As far as general graphics subsystems go, however, OpenGL (typically in combination with GLUT) has been an easy and productive ride for me. Regrettably I have little DirectX experience to compare to, though :S
For writing souped-up versions of standard Windows components, I loved Borland's VCL, and am very pleased with .NET.
my background: i've been developing web applications using php and javascript for the past ten years. before that, i've developed applications using turbo pascal for DOS. in my opinion application and web application development are two different kinds of development (at least it's what i think when i remember back the old days of DOS application development).
now i am in the need to go back to "normal" application development for various reasons. the application i want to build needs a GUI and it has to run on osx and windows. as mac os user it would be very nice for me to get an application as result, that really feels like an osx application. i don't need any special UI components: an explorer/finder like tree, a datagrid and some form-elements would be enough for my needs.
now the problem is, that i don't know where to start: i would classify me as newbie, because it's that long time since i last developed anything other than a web application. are there any recommendations of programming languages and gui toolkits with a not to steep learning curve? or can you recommend any book i should read for getting into cross-plattform osx/windows app development?
many thanks!
thanks everyone! i think i'll have a look at realbasic!
Edit Nov 2011 - a retraction
Most of what I say below is still true however I have now got serious reservations about recommending REALbasic for anyone trying to release commercial-quality applications. To save me remembering to edit this post later, see if RealSoftware have managed to release a robust version of their IDE using the Cocoa version of their frameworks. If not, be very cautious.
It's with a heavy heart that I write this because I still really like the language and think the framework and IDE are well-done. The problem is apparently one of under-capitalization and possibly a software development culture inside the company that consistently fails to deal with a bug regression problem. Many bugs are fixed each release but there appears to be a huge tax on the developers in the number of introduced bugs. They have a very small team for the complexity of the product, especially considering the newly released Web Edition which is effectively an entirely new platform.
It's still theoretically a great product but take advantage of the trial period, test it thoroughly on each of the platforms you plan to target and decide if you can live with any bugs you find because they may be there for a while.
REALbasic.
The language is a powerful, modern OO language that won't be hard for you to adapt to from your vaguely remembered Pascal or current JavaScript. It has most of the power of C++ without the dangerous bits that make debugging a nightmare. You will also find the IDE simpler and easier to deal with than say Visual Studio.
The IDE makes it very easy to throw together a GUI and have it just work on multiple platforms. The Pro version has one of the best cross-platform debuggers I've used and it is easy to just work (say) on a Mac and develop for Windows and Linux, compiling and testing with one click.
There is also a thriving community including many people at your level of expertise so you won't be mocked for being a newbie.
I am a professional software developer with over 25 years experience and currently mainly working in REALbasic, C++, C#, Objective-C and a bit of Ruby. For apps such as you mention, REALbasic is my tool of choice.
edit: I can't believe someone downvoted this but didn't have the guts to add a comment explaining why. I'd heard about prejudice against REALbasic but this is the first time I've encountered it. In what way was my answer inappropriate for this question?
Just to add to my cred, I've implemented cross-platform frameworks used by systems deployed to tens of thousands of end users - I have the C++ cross-platform experience to applaud someone else doing a good job and the REALbasic frameworks are very nice.
The best cross-platform tool I've dabbled in with a relatively small learning curve...especially if you're familiar with Visual Basic...is REALbasic. With REALbasic Pro you can compile a program to target Win32, Linux, and OS X from the same codebase, as long as you're not using OS-specific calls and features (which you can do with plugins or direct calls). Their support has been pretty responsive to my questions, the personal edition (which compiles to only the single target platform you'd downloaded the IDE for) is free for Linux and inexpensive for other platforms, but really you might want to download and try it out. One IDE, relatively inexpensive, and can compile native applications on OS X, Windows, and Linux...it's less hassle, and for me that's important when you want to get a job done.
I'd advise against C and Qt and would also recommend REALbasic.
With your background in Pascal and probably JavaScript you'll feel much more comfortable with REALbasic. I've done a lot of coding in Pascal and C/C++ - where Pascal guides you to avoid programming mistakes, C lets you step right in, even invites you, and then you'll have a hard time figuring out why it went wrong. Qt is a very abstract framework and requires you to learn a lot before you can get something working, just like with C. When compared to the easyness we used to have with TP back then.
RB is much more like Pascal in this regard. And its IDE is quite modern in regards to supporting your programming, with an easy-to-use GUI designer, straight-forward editor to fill in the gaps for handling UI events, code completion, etc.
Only when you get into huge program sizes, RB loses some of its appeal because it is missing tools to give you a good overview of complex class interactions etc.
Another thing is that Qt is more likely to cause ugly-looking Mac apps than RB would. RB visually guides you to get it all aligned nicely - in Qt you have to work with numbers, offsets, etc. to position your objects (at least it was that way when I used Qt 2 years ago).
I've written quite a few x-platform apps in RB and am pretty happy with the results.
You won't probably write those super-nice looking apps that compete with the best on the open small business market, but if you just want to get some solid code working, with an easy-to-design UI that's acceptable to the average user, give RB a try.
It's not free, though. But its rather small community is on your side - they're eager to help, instead of bashing everyone who's trying to talk sense :)
I'm new here but picked up on this thread through the REALbasic User Group. I think my position was similar to yours. I did website design for my work, using mostly javascript (with a little php, not much). I had a Pascal and BASIC background. I'd dabbled it C but didn't like the level of detail you needed to monitor it. It reminded me too much of assembly (which I still have nightmares about from my high-school/college days).
I was looking for a cross-platform language, with a familiar feel to it, but initially started with VB because it was free. I prefer programming in MacOS however, so I tried REALbasic. I found that REALbasic's UI builder was much easier to use than VB's. I'd echo other comments that the community is the most responsive of any user groups I've been involved with. I've since used REALbasic and my Mac to make several programs that over 100 users use every day at my work (on PCs, mostly XP and 2000). I've received compliments on the polish and ease of use of these programs. You DO have to remember to adjust the 'little' things to make it look right cross platform (ie: default button placement is opposite on PC vs. Mac, button sizes are different on Linux, etc). Many people have donated custom classes that do this stuff for you though.
People seem to assume that a "BASIC" language cannot be powerful enough for their purposes. While it is BASIC at it's core (with For..Next, Do..While, and If..Then commands), it ain't your daddy's BASIC. It's much more OOP than anything else I've used, based upon an event-driven structure, which for me was easy to pick up. They have a free trial, so grab a demo and run through the tutorial. If you get stuck, ask for questions on the NUG or Forums at the website and you'll likely get an answer quickly.
You may be interested in the following questions and answers:
Cross-platform development - Go with a cross-platform UI toolkit or native on multiple platforms?
Easiest cross platform widget toolkit?
Should I use a cross-platform GUI-toolkit or rely on the native ones?
Using a Mac for cross platform development?
and many others suggested in the Related sidebar of these questions.
Some answers suggest gtk (which is used by cross-platform gimp). Others suggest native approaches. Some suggest that a Mac is a nice platform for developing for Mac OS X, Windows, Unix and Linux.
I wholeheartedly recommend RealBasic too. I have been using RB for about 8 years now and find it to be a perfect tool for my Companies development needs, from small apps, to large multi-user systems.
It is perfect for beginners and those that are getting back into programming, and also for professional developers.
Highly recommended.
As Andy Dent and others here have indicated, for a newbie to create cross-platform applications it is hard to beat REALbasic (now Xojo).
Sure, there are plenty of other cross platform solutions such as QT (C++), Java, .NET (to some extent) and wxWidgets but they are not something a beginner would be able to use effectively.
I have many years of professional development experience in a wide variety of languages and technologies and I prefer to use REALbasic most of the time.
With that said, you might also consider Runtime Revolution or Adobe Air.
Whilst it might seem tempting to use a language thats platform independent and allow you to write the app once and use anywhere, you will undoubtably be sacrificing something on each, particularly in the UI and user experience.
If you can your best creating something using a native API that lets you take full advantage of the features of the OS to make your application shine.
I would definitely go for C++ and Qt, the code you write once will compile and run without problems on Windows, Mac and Linux. The new IDE that comes with Qt - Qt Creator is brilliant, works and looks the same on Windows, Mac and Linux, you don't need to anything else to start writing cross-platform applications.
I tried WxWidgets but didn't find good IDE, the best one was Code Blocks but GUI Designer is not perfect and has different problems on different systems and the IDE itself is still under heavy development.
Other options are Java and C# but those are not cross-platform languages, those are platforms themselves. Although you wouldn't need to compile code for each platform there will a lot of different issues on the way...
If your GUI's simple enough, why not just create a generic GUI layer, then program to that? Compile a version for each OS using native widgets. That's the best way to ensure native L&F on multiple platforms.
Both the Qt and REALbasic suggestions are good, although they tie you to that particular technology (which I can't imagine would be an issue in this particular case).
Personally, I'd go with Java, because it's worked for me before (I had an app that ran on my PDA, my phone and my desktop), but it doesn't use native widgets.
Adding a late comment here:
Take a look at Revolution. It's sort of like a modern Hyper-card on roids. And it's cross platform (Mac, Linux and Windows). This is a serious competitor to RealBasic and is coming on strong. Though I still use RB (and like it) I'm giving Revolution a serious look at.
I would also look into either Realbasic or Revolution. They both create cross platform native apps. Personally I think Realbasic would be a better choice as it is very similar, language wise, to VB. You can learn some valuable skills with RB and it can grow with your experience. I have been using VB and RB for more then 10 years combined and I think you will be happy.
If you need your code to be cross platform, you would have to go with something like QT.
Although, I would recommend using native API for each one (Cocoa for Mac OS X, .NET or the Win32 API for Windows). User experience will be much better. But of course, that will cost you more money in terms of developers hours.