Mailing List Archive

On 3/17/2023 1:13 PM, Alan Gauld wrote:
> Oops! I meant to send this to the group not just Dave.
>
>
> -------- Forwarded Message --------
>
> On 16/03/2023 22:55, dn via Python-list wrote:
>
>> Do you make use of your IDE's expansionist tendencies, and if-so, which
>> ones?
>
> When I'm writing Java/C++/C# yes, I need all the IDE help I can get.
> Netbeans or Eclipse being my tools of choice. And in my Windows days
> I used Delphi and Smalltalk/V which both pretty much only exist within
> their own IDEs and I used their features extensively.

Back when Delphi first came out, when I first used it, I don't remember
any IDE; one just used a text editor.

> When writing Python I use IDLE, or vim for bigger jobs.
> IDLE does have some suggestions and auto tricks but I don't
> always use them. In vim I use auto-indent and that's about it.
>

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On 2023-03-17 17:55, Thomas Passin wrote:
> On 3/17/2023 1:13 PM, Alan Gauld wrote:
>> Oops! I meant to send this to the group not just Dave.
>>
>>
>> -------- Forwarded Message --------
>>
>> On 16/03/2023 22:55, dn via Python-list wrote:
>>
>>> Do you make use of your IDE's expansionist tendencies, and if-so, which
>>> ones?
>>
>> When I'm writing Java/C++/C# yes, I need all the IDE help I can get.
>> Netbeans or Eclipse being my tools of choice. And in my Windows days
>> I used Delphi and Smalltalk/V which both pretty much only exist within
>> their own IDEs and I used their features extensively.
>
> Back when Delphi first came out, when I first used it, I don't remember
> any IDE; one just used a text editor.
>
I used Turbo Pascal and then Delphi 3 or 4, back when it was still Borland.

>> When writing Python I use IDLE, or vim for bigger jobs.
>> IDLE does have some suggestions and auto tricks but I don't
>> always use them. In vim I use auto-indent and that's about it.
>>

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On 17/03/2023 17:55, Thomas Passin wrote:

>> I used Delphi and Smalltalk/V which both pretty much only exist within
>> their own IDEs and I used their features extensively.
>
> Back when Delphi first came out, when I first used it, I don't remember
> any IDE; one just used a text editor.

I think you might be meaning TurboPascal, Delphi's forerunner. It just
had a compiler and text editor. But Delphi from day 1 was an IDE
designed to compete with Visual Basic. Everything was geared around the
GUI builder. You could write code outside the IDE but it was orders of
magnitude more difficult.

The Lazarus open source project is based on Delphi's IDE.

--
Alan G
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.alan-g.me.uk/
http://www.amazon.com/author/alan_gauld
Follow my photo-blog on Flickr at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alangauldphotos


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On 2023-03-18 08:46:42 +0000, Alan Gauld wrote:
> On 17/03/2023 17:55, Thomas Passin wrote:
> >> I used Delphi and Smalltalk/V which both pretty much only exist within
> >> their own IDEs and I used their features extensively.
> >
> > Back when Delphi first came out, when I first used it, I don't remember
> > any IDE; one just used a text editor.
>
> I think you might be meaning TurboPascal, Delphi's forerunner. It just
> had a compiler and text editor.

I'd still classify Turbo Pascal as an IDE. It wasn't a standalone
compiler you would invoke on source files you wrote with some other
tool. It was a single program where you would write your code, compile
it, see the errors directly in the source code. I think it even had a
debugger which would also use the same editor window (Turbo C did).


> But Delphi from day 1 was an IDE designed to compete with Visual
> Basic. Everything was geared around the GUI builder.

Turbo Pascal predated GUIs, so it wouldn't have a GUI builder. Also not
everything you develop needs a GUI (in fact I haven't written a real
application (i.e. not a learning project) with a traditional desktop GUI
for 20 years) so the presence or absence of a GUI builder isn't an
essential criterion on whether something is or is not an IDE.

hp

--
_ | Peter J. Holzer | Story must make more sense than reality.
|_|_) | |
| | | hjp@hjp.at | -- Charles Stross, "Creative writing
__/ | http://www.hjp.at/ | challenge!"

On 3/18/2023 4:46 AM, Alan Gauld wrote:
> On 17/03/2023 17:55, Thomas Passin wrote:
>
>>> I used Delphi and Smalltalk/V which both pretty much only exist within
>>> their own IDEs and I used their features extensively.
>>
>> Back when Delphi first came out, when I first used it, I don't remember
>> any IDE; one just used a text editor.
>
> I think you might be meaning TurboPascal, Delphi's forerunner. It just
> had a compiler and text editor. But Delphi from day 1 was an IDE
> designed to compete with Visual Basic. Everything was geared around the
> GUI builder. You could write code outside the IDE but it was orders of
> magnitude more difficult.

Maybe my memory has faded too much! I remember porting some of my
TurboPascal code to Delphi and wrapping it with the Delphi-Windows GUI
instead of my own, pre-Delphi one. The details are hazy, though ...


> The Lazarus open source project is based on Delphi's IDE.
>

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On 3/18/2023 8:15 AM, Peter J. Holzer wrote:
> On 2023-03-18 08:46:42 +0000, Alan Gauld wrote:
>> On 17/03/2023 17:55, Thomas Passin wrote:
>>>> I used Delphi and Smalltalk/V which both pretty much only exist within
>>>> their own IDEs and I used their features extensively.
>>>
>>> Back when Delphi first came out, when I first used it, I don't remember
>>> any IDE; one just used a text editor.
>>
>> I think you might be meaning TurboPascal, Delphi's forerunner. It just
>> had a compiler and text editor.
>
> I'd still classify Turbo Pascal as an IDE. It wasn't a standalone
> compiler you would invoke on source files you wrote with some other
> tool. It was a single program where you would write your code, compile
> it, see the errors directly in the source code. I think it even had a
> debugger which would also use the same editor window (Turbo C did).

Yes, TurboPascal was a brilliant product for its time. And it was much
cheaper than getting, say, a complete C compiler package, and way easier
and faster to use.

>
>> But Delphi from day 1 was an IDE designed to compete with Visual
>> Basic. Everything was geared around the GUI builder.
>
> Turbo Pascal predated GUIs, so it wouldn't have a GUI builder. Also not
> everything you develop needs a GUI (in fact I haven't written a real
> application (i.e. not a learning project) with a traditional desktop GUI
> for 20 years) so the presence or absence of a GUI builder isn't an
> essential criterion on whether something is or is not an IDE.
>
> hp
>
>

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Peter J. Holzer schreef op 18/03/2023 om 13:15:
> On 2023-03-18 08:46:42 +0000, Alan Gauld wrote:
> > On 17/03/2023 17:55, Thomas Passin wrote:
> > >> I used Delphi and Smalltalk/V which both pretty much only exist within
> > >> their own IDEs and I used their features extensively.
> > >
> > > Back when Delphi first came out, when I first used it, I don't remember
> > > any IDE; one just used a text editor.
> >
> > I think you might be meaning TurboPascal, Delphi's forerunner. It just
> > had a compiler and text editor.
>
> I'd still classify Turbo Pascal as an IDE. It wasn't a standalone
> compiler you would invoke on source files you wrote with some other
> tool. It was a single program where you would write your code, compile
> it, see the errors directly in the source code. I think it even had a
> debugger which would also use the same editor window (Turbo C did).

Oh yes, Turbo Pascal was definitely an IDE. It was actually pretty
similar to the GUI applications we have today, even though it was all
text based. It had a menu bar with pull-down menus, it had popup
windows. The look and feel is pretty similar to that of Midnight
Commander (mc) nowadays, for those who know that.

Like you say it had an editor (obviously) and an integrated compiler,
and indeed an integrated debugger, with watches and all, much like you
would see in an IDE today. See this screenshot for example:
https://daynhauhoc.s3.dualstack.ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/original/3X/7/8/782423b53bb6531d43c3c2075cb4a00f4ac7a5c0.png

For people too young to have used such semi-graphical applications in
the past, you can find plenty of screenshots when you do an image search
for turbo pascal.

Turbo Pascal was obviously not as advanced as the IDEs we have today,
but it was definitely an IDE, and it had all the basic functions that
one would expect from an IDE.

--
"Most of us, when all is said and done, like what we like and make up
reasons for it afterwards."
-- Soren F. Petersen

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On 18/03/2023 12:15, Peter J. Holzer wrote:

>> I think you might be meaning TurboPascal, Delphi's forerunner. It just
>> had a compiler and text editor.
>
> I'd still classify Turbo Pascal as an IDE. It wasn't a standalone
> compiler you would invoke on source files you wrote with some other

It had both (although I'm not sure when that was introduced, the
original didn't). Mostly you used the IDE/editor but there was a
command line compiler that you could run (and a make-like project
tool too in the later versions). I started with TurboPascal on DOS
at Uni generating COM files then later used TP versions 4, 5.5(with
added OOP!) and 6 professionally, creating EXE file DOS programs.

Up until I switched to a Mac, a year ago, I still had TP6 and used
it to maintain some old TurboVision DOS programs.

But I used Delphi from version 1 through to 7(?) for all my Windows
programming and still have version 3 installed (via VirtualBox on
Linux) to keep some old shareware apps of mine running.

I often think there are a lot of similarities between
Delphi/Object Pascal and Python in the OOP area.

> it, see the errors directly in the source code. I think it even had a
> debugger which would also use the same editor window (Turbo C did).

I think the debugger came in v3, but i could be wrong. I don't
recall there being one at uni...

> Turbo Pascal predated GUIs, so it wouldn't have a GUI builder.

No, it did have a windowing toolkit(TurboVision) but no visual UI
builder. That was the big new feature of Delphi.

> application (i.e. not a learning project) with a traditional desktop GUI
> for 20 years) so the presence or absence of a GUI builder isn't an
> essential criterion on whether something is or is not an IDE.

Indeed, but it was intrinsic to Delphi (even though you could
write non GUI apps too, but they required extra effort.)
Eclipse et al have GUI builders available as extras, in Delphi
(and Lazurus) it is hard to avoid.

BTW Delphi (v11) and the other Borland tools are still going strong,
albeit at extortionately high prices: $1000~3000 for the pro
versions! (But there is still a free community version with
just the basics.) See http://www.embarcadero.com
And it's targeted at multi-platforms now: Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS
although it only runs on Windows.

--
Alan G
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.alan-g.me.uk/
http://www.amazon.com/author/alan_gauld
Follow my photo-blog on Flickr at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alangauldphotos


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https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

On 2023-03-18 16:06:49 +0000, Alan Gauld wrote:
> On 18/03/2023 12:15, Peter J. Holzer wrote:
> >> I think you might be meaning TurboPascal, Delphi's forerunner. It just
> >> had a compiler and text editor.
> >
> > I'd still classify Turbo Pascal as an IDE. It wasn't a standalone
> > compiler you would invoke on source files you wrote with some other
>
> It had both

I didn't mention that because I think it is irrelevant to the question
whether Turbo Pascal as an IDE or not.

What is relevant IMNSHO is that it did indeed provide an "integraded
environment" for "developing", combining all those tools which were
traditionally separate in one user interface.

> Indeed, but it was intrinsic to Delphi (even though you could
> write non GUI apps too, but they required extra effort.)
> Eclipse et al have GUI builders available as extras, in Delphi
> (and Lazurus) it is hard to avoid.

This is starting to sound like "Delphi is the only True™ IDE".

hp

--
_ | Peter J. Holzer | Story must make more sense than reality.
|_|_) | |
| | | hjp@hjp.at | -- Charles Stross, "Creative writing
__/ | http://www.hjp.at/ | challenge!"