Sorry for the question.

[Kyle]

Im sorry in advance for such a noob question. However, im currently working in Vb and C/++ , trying to venture into Pascal. I love Pascal, i actually need to learn it to write macro scripts for a game called Runescape. Well, i need a compiler. I use Windows XP, and tried Freepascal and turbo, but cant get them to run correctly. Any suggestions?? Thanks for your time !


kyle

[cairnswm]

Newbies are welcome on this site. Noone gets upset here about newbie questions so no need to apologise (I actually get upsety by the apology :))

The easiest free pascal compiler and IDE to get working is Lazarus (which uses FreePascal as the compiler) - currently there is a lot of effort being put in on this site to get people using Lazarus so look around as there is an introductory post about getting it working avaialble (under the freepascal forum I think)

[{MSX}]

im currently working in Vb and C/++ , trying to venture into Pascal.

Good choice! :P Follow the Right Way :mrgreen:

About the compiler, if you tried freepascal, you're right. Maybe you could tell us what problem you got.. You could post the output too.
Bye!

[Kyle]

wow thanks alot guys. Great site, im used to getting flamed for asking questions like that. :)

[Traveler]

Wow thanks alot guys. Great site, im used to getting flamed for asking questions like that.

There's nothing wrong with the question. I don't see why you should get flamed for that. It is a bit vague though. Like {MSX} said, tell us more about the errors, if you have them or at least why you think its not working properly.

[Robert Kosek]

You'll find this to be a very friendly community. Any more details you could give us?

[WILL]

Welcome to PGD Kyle. :)

Yes many sites you'd find that you'd easily get flammed or have a pot-shot taken at you in no time at all, but this is mostly due to a lack of either maturity or simply bad attitudes. I (and most others here) like to promote newcomers and new programmers alike. Bitting someones head off for asking a question is frowned upon here so if you see it here, it's rare and won't become the norm.

As for your Pascal questions, There are some greate compilers for not only Windows, but many other great platforms. The hottest of them right now is Free Pascal as it supports a ton of platforms(Win32, Linux, Mac OS (Classic and X), BeOS and we're working at trying to get GameBoy Advanced in there too *crossing fingers* but give it time ;)). GNU Pascal is another, but it's basically a front layer for GCC. Then, of course, there is good ole' Delphi and Kylix. Lazarus is a very nice IDE for Free Pascal and is developing quite fast lately.

If you want to try your hand a PalmOS there is a few PP Compiler(opensource, but lacking in docs), HSPascal(made by a former Turbo Pascal developer, but status a little fuzzy) and PocketStudio(commercial, but pretty good).

I hope that helps to shed some light on the Pascal compiler situation. APIs and libraries... well... thats a whole other world of answers there there are plenty. ;)

[Kyle]

Ok thanks. I now have Free Pacal installed. I was looking into Lazarus also but the site only offered a linux compatible version. Now that i know how helpful you all are i will ask one more thing just to clarify .. Delphi is not the same as Pascal, but it uses it to create applications?? I mean its a language, but theres also a compiler called delphi from borland?? I guess what im trying to ask is, how are Pascal and Delphi related??

Thanks for all your help. ;)

[Robert Kosek]

Ok, Delphi uses Pascal ... though in it's own style. Pascal is the language, though Borland has made "adustments" and "enhancements".

FreePascal is a little different, though it still uses pascal. Again the language is fundamentally the same, though the style/use is slightly different.

I hope you enjoy your stay!

[Ultra]

Also it might be a good idea to mention that FreePascal supports the Delphi style of pascal. All you have to do is write {$MODE DELPHI} in your source. Personally I have never used FreePascal's own dialect I've only used the Delphi dialect with it.

[Sly]

Pascal was invented by Nicholas Wirth a long time ago to help teach programming.

Borland took Pascal and extended it to become Object Pascal by adding classes (and a whole heap of other stuff along the way).

Delphi was created by Borland as a rapid application development (RAD) environment that used the Object Pascal language. Through the various versions of Delphi, the Object Pascal was extended even further. Around the time of the release of Delphi 7, Borland officially changed the name of Object Pascal to Delphi. So now we have the IDE called Delphi and the language called Delphi.

FreePascal has also taken the basic Pascal language and enhanced it, usually following the same implementation that Borland used. FreePascal has differed in some small details, and has enhanced even further in other directions, but it does have a Delphi-compatible mode (-Mdelphi).

[WILL]

The only missing part of Pascal's history remaining is the timeframe from when Dr. Wirth created the original dialect of Pascal up until Borland created Delphi and with it it's latest major alteration of the language 'Object Pascal'.

In the 70s, Before Borland came into the picture, Dr. Wirth also created an enhanced version called 'UCSD Pascal' which had many inprovements. Sometime after that in the early 80s it became THE language to use as it far out-did FORTRAN, COBALT and most other languages of the day. Apple made it it's #1 language for all of their development even. ;)

Borland eventualy got on the band wagon, and in my oppinion this is where the language flourished in the compiler called Turbo Pascal. They made 7 versions, plus 2 more 'Borland Pascal 7' and I think ithe other was called 'Borland Pascal for Windows'... I cannot recall how exactly that went.

But around that time DOS was a dying enviroment and Windows was taking over as #1 so... Borland started making Delphi abandoning the Turbo Pascal line of compilers. The rest is pretty much what you see now. Do we face a 2nd revolution in Pascal's history? I certanly hope so :twisted:

For a more accurate history of the Pascal language check out this article it's pretty accurate from what I can tell. http://www.taoyue.com/tutorials/pascal/history.html

[cairnswm]

Lazarus for the windows platform is available from www.lazarus.freepascal.org

[Lightning]

Lazarus download page:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=89339
(See windows section for the win installer)