Regarding Memory Management
Its possible to write a Pascal program w/o any pointer, but it may be not
elegant and interfaces to some C-like GUI structures, as used in all common
OSs, are impossible.
But, I am using Borland Pascal (sic!) and also FreePascal (no Lazarus) for
small embedded system for over 25 years now w/o any pointer.
Code is sometimes ugly, but it is (proofed by reality with many different
projects) hard rock stable for 24/7/365 applications.
Maybe I am wrong, but afaik, procedural programming w/o objects and pointers
requires no add. memory management.
The size and memory location of all variables is fixed. And, yes, of course,
you have to care about an array access, but $R+ is your friend.
See: N. Wirth Algorithms and Data Structures chapter 4.2:
"A further consequence of the explicitness of pointers is that it is possible
to define and manipulate cyclic
data structures. This additional flexibility yields, of course, not only
increased power but also requires
increased care ("erhöhte Sorgfalt" in the German ed.) by the programmer,
because the manipulation of cyclic data structures may easily lead to
nonterminating processes.
This phenomenon of power and flexibility being intimately coupled with the
danger of misuse is well
known in programming, and it particularly recalls the GOTO statement."
So as in real life: the price for freedom is increased care!
I am awaiting your shitstorms......
Markus
--- original message ---
On October 19, 2024 at 4:27 PM GMT+2 fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org wrote:
> On Oct 19, 2024 at 9:15:10 PM, Rainer Stratmann via fpc-pascal
> <fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org> wrote:
>> I really can not see where beginners have to struggle with memory management.
>> If a project gets bigger you have to think about it, yes. It depends on the
>> coding style. In my project I wrote my own memory management for the
>> webserver. It took me 3 weeks of work.
I didn’t mean to get into a big flame war over this and debate the merits of
both I’m just telling you what I see in the industry and trends in programming.
This isn’t the only thing either just one of the larger ones.
If you really want to know then FPC should conduct a survey and see what users
say. Ask existing users and try to reach out to other programmers too.
Regards,
Ryan Joseph
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