Free Pascal 2.2 Has Been Released 284
Daniel Mantione writes "Free Pascal 2.2 has been released. Several new platforms are supported, like the Mac OS X on Intel platform, the Game Boy Advance, Windows CE and 64-Windows. Free Pascal is now the first and only free software compiler that targets 64-bit Windows. These advancements were made possible by Free Pascal's internal assembler and linker allowing support for platforms not supported by the GNU binutils. The advancement in internal assembling and linking also allow faster compilation times and smaller executables, increasing the programmer comfort. Other new features are stabs debug support, many new code optimizations, resourcestring smart-linking and more."
Good Stuff (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Pascal is so '80s (Score:3, Insightful)
Basically, please remember that there are lands beyond your horizon. Just because you can't see them doesn't mean that they don't exist nor does it mean that they aren't important.
80's college nostalgia (Score:5, Insightful)
64-bit Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, but then you have to write it in Pascal!
Re:Mixed Reaction.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:For some definition of the word 'free' (Score:4, Insightful)
It's this childish "Waah, its MS and not FOSS" attitude that make all of
Ugh...
Re:Mixed Reaction.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Dennis Ritchie on Pascal (Score:2, Insightful)
Some of the typing weirdness remains, although it is better hidden. Some of the cosmetic issues remain.
Really the big problem with Free Pascal generation pascal is it is only better than C in some fairly academic ways, and a lot worse than C in some quite practical ways. There are far better minority language choices to be made for most tasks. Free Pascal is more of a "because it's fun" language that people choose because people used Borland pascal for those purposes historically, not really for any virtues of the language itself.
Re:Mixed Reaction.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think Borland gave up all the quickly. We went through three full development cycles, and even did a C++ version. The product didn't so much end early as start late. The 1.0 release was many months behind schedule, mainly because Borland's developers just didn't believe in schedules.