KludgeHack

Next Generation Object Pascal for .NET

Browsing online, I found RemObjects Software company and I had no idea that there was a Pascal “resurrection” for .NET: Chrome.

Me and Pascal (programming language) go way back, when I was in high-school, and Pascal was the beginners way to learn programming.

So, why create a next generation Pascal language? RemObjects believes in the combined elegance of Pascal with the power and flexibility of the CLR (.NET/Mono). As a result they released a product that works on both the Microsoft and Mono CLR implementations, can produce clients running on Pocket PC and has no dependencies on anything but standard .NET classes.

From their “Introduction to Chrome”, their most important reasons for this creation:

• Technical limitations of existing languages for modern OOP
  While C# provides most of the features available in Delphi and extends it with some of its own, as an OO language it is not that different or necessarily better. Both languages give you a great deal of flexibility, but what if you could go a little further? What if you could extend how for loops work or add a language feature that lets you create multi-threaded code through the use of a single keyword? What about being in a position in which we can actually control the compiler rather than waiting for other companies to improve it?
• Commercial considerations
  Most of those who move from Delphi to .NET choose to use Visual Studio, and within it the choice of languages is, in most cases, between C# and VB.NET. While both these languages would be acceptable choices, many developers would still prefer to use Object Pascal and not have to learn a completely new language. So why not give them Object Pascal inside Visual Studio?

Currently in version 1.5, Chrome looks and feels like a mature language and shouldn’t be ignored by programmer, mainly by those used to Pascal/Delphi and want to write native .NET applications.

You can learn more about this language at the product official website. From dozens of great features, I would like to highlight the full integration with Visual Studio 2003/2005, Cross-platform linking and ASP.NET scripting support.

I will keep me eye on this.