[linux-audio-user] Re: An equivalent for Megafont

[Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas]

On Friday 13 May 2005, Lee Revel wrote:
> > [1] http://www.geocities.com/lstnght2000/
> > [2] http://www.geocities.com/lstnght2000/megafont_mutation_src.zip
>
> Is it really written in... Pascal?  What was the author smoking?

It is written in Delphi, a Pascal dialect developed by Borland as an object 
oriented replacement for his ancient and  successful product "Turbo Pascal". 
There is a Linux version, Borland Kylix [1]. There is also a GPL-licensed  
compiler aimed to be compatible with this dialect: Free Pascal [2].

And why not to choose any language to develop your programs it the language is 
suitable for the task?

You can use some arguments like the ones in Kernigham's old diatribe [3] 
against Pascal, followed by the other sacred cow  [4]. But Delphi/Kylix and 
Free Pascal are Pascal descendants without any of the flaws claimed by 
Kernigham. You can find  similar rants against any language, including C 
[5][6].

Here are some rebuttal facts against Kernigham's arguments.

Delphi language has dynamic arrays, where the size is not part of the type 
anymore (2.1). It has static and initialized variables (2.2). Forward 
declarations and function prototypes (2.3). It allows *fast* separate 
compilation (2.4) preserving  strong type checking across units. Set types 
are powerful and large enough, allowing 'set of char' with 256 elements, and 
type declarations are allowed in a function prototype (2.5). There is a cast 
mechanism (2.6) similar to Java. It has advanced control flow for loops using 
break and continue keywords (3). A powerful runtime library allows you the 
use of all the operating system functions, including I/O (4), you can even 
use the Glibc library in Kylix and FPC. And finally, you can write ALSA 
programs using this language [7], which is why I'm writting this article and 
why it is on-topic in this list.

[1] Borland Kylix
http://www.borland.com/kylix/

[2] Free Pascal
http://www.freepascal.org/

[3] Brian W. Kernighan: Why Pascal is Not My Favorite Programming Language.
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~cs655/readings/bwk-on-pascal.html

[4] Eric S. Raymond. The Jargon File.
http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/P/Pascal.html

[5] James A C Joyce. Why C Is Not My Favorite Programming Language.
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/2/7/144019/8872

[6] Weilin Zhong. Why C is not My Favorite Language
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/%7Ewz5r/cs655/whycnot.htm

[7] ALSA Library Bindings for Pascal
http://perso.wanadoo.es/plcl/alsapas/alsapas-en.html


Regards,
Pedro