#6 ALL ABOUT OBJECT PASCAL
Object Pascal has been around since the 1980s and is still surprisingly common, holding up its usefulness. The first IDE I was introduced to was Lazarus back in 2015 It was something completely new to me. After being used to all the HTML, PHP development during High School.
Lazarus proved it’s usefulness leveraging the COM port on a windows computer it allows us to program powerful apps with lightning fast communication between embedded devices and our desktop computer.
The object-oriented programming (OOP) nature of pascal proves great for beginners. with in the first 3 months of my introduction to OOP pascal I was able to create a useful email sifter for my senior dev work college. Greatly reducing the time he spent reading emails in the morning.
After some trial and error I was able to create more sophisticated applications still used by my previous employers to this day. Unfortunately the source code is confidential but I can elaborate on my experience building complex applications with the Lazarus IDE.
It was challenging though very rewarding after the application was released and stable. The app basically allowed us to communicate with an embedded chip on a MDVR device through the COM port on our computers. We were able to setup all the settings by simply plugging the device in the USB port.
This alleviated the pressure of using a TV like remote control to setup 100’s of devices especially when staff was minimal and time is of the essence. The saying time is money is very true to one who has experienced these circumstances.
Nowadays I tend to lean more towards C# because of the variety (Xamarin mobile, ASP .NET web based, WPF desktop etc.)
Nothing beats C#’s usability, familiarity and legacy.
Great free Pascal IDE’s: