🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <430daced.12530523@news.btopenworld.com>, erewhon@nowhere.uk wrote:
>On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 15:16:21 GMT, ppnerkDELETETHIS@yahoo.com (Phred)
>wrote:
><snip>
>>Thanks very much, Charles, for your thoughtful and useful response.
>>I do have a followup query though:  How difficult would it be for an 
>>old BASIC programmer to become reasonably proficient in Delphi?
>>I believe it harks back to Pascal in many ways, so perhaps your 
>>earlier experience with that language would have helped in your case?  
>>However, judging from your response, you have also had a fair bit to 
>>do with various BASICs, so I would appreciate your advice on this.
>
>I've been using BASICs since 1977
>
>I started using VB on 1996 and ran into speed problems so I got a copy
>of Delphi and used it to write a DLL containing pure ASM
>
>Then I got interested in the language
>- it is not BASIC
>- I made the cardinal mistake of trying to write BASIC code in it
>
>I've ported a fair load of BASIC 7.1 code directly into Delphi
>- it is not that difficult
>
>If I'm correct in guessing that you have done no Windows programming
>then I reckon your biggest problem is going to be getting a handle on
>how Windows works

Yeah.  You guess correctly.  And that could be a serious problem. :-(
Mind you, if you don't actually *need* to write Windows programs, but 
just want to stick to more traditional BASIC stuff, maybe that can 
still be done okay?  (But then, perhaps I simply stay with PDS7.1?  My 
concern there would be whether it will remain compatible with Win XP 
and future such OSes.  At a guess, some of it may already be broken?)

>There is also something to watch out for, Delphi is a 'new' form of
>Pascal 
>- old style Pascal is not really to my taste
>- one can write far clearer code using the 'new' features of Delphi
>  but a lot of the code one sees is in the 'old style'
>
>It is an interesting language, not really for beginners, but for a
>fairly experienced coder it is a pleasure to use.

Are there "flavours" of Delphi available that would best suit a 
beginner, or would it be advisable to simply jump in the deep end with 
the latest and greatest, if making the switch from BASIC?

Also, if runtimes are not really an issue (and isn't .NET supposed to 
overcome that sort of problem anyway?) then would you suggest staying 
with a BASIC such as VB.NET (or even VB6 if still obtainable)?

Thanks for your time.

Cheers, Phred.

-- 
ppnerkDELETE@THISyahoo.com.INVALID