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The ever evolving DWScript project continues to advance the Pascal language at an impressive pace. Just today it was announced that this scripting version of Pascal now has “namespace” support.
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Continuing the theme of recent – and upcoming – posts about new (and not so new) syntax in modern (and not so modern) variations on the Pascal language, I just have to comment on what I regard as yet another stunningly good job that the guys at RemObjects have done in their “Nougat” flavoured Oxygene.  Specifically in relation to how they have implemented the named method parts syntax in Objective-C.

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I have posted before about new language features introduced in a way that does not adhere to the (admittedly quite notional) “Spirit of Delphi”. It’s time for another one, this time inspired by a post by Paul Klink of the ADUG.
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Mat DeLong just posted another great example of when not to abuse class helpers in Delphi (though I should add that he didn’t seem to see it that way). :)

But you don’t need helpers to do what this technique achieves, and in my view you really shouldn’t be using helpers for it in the first place.
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Lars Fosdal responded to my previous post suggesting a way of implementing string support in a case-like construct (but not actually a case statement) using generics and anonymous methods.

All very clever, but way, way too complicated and – if you don’t mind me saying so – as ugly as sin into the bargain (imho – ymmv).

For simple cases [sic], it is actually relatively straightforward to uses strings in a case statement.
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Eric Grange (resurrector of the increasingly interesting looking DWS project) recently posted about a new idea he has had for the DWS engine, which in turn gave me an idea, or rather, prompted me to come up with what I think may be a new spin on an old one.
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A welcome new language feature in Delphi 2010 is the introduction of attributes, as previously found in .NET languages.  However I am slightly disappointed that the language implementation is also very close to that found in C# and other .NET languages and not more in keeping with what I would consider The Spirit Of Delphi.

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The first two canned videos from last weeks preview of Tiburon have appeared on the CDN site.  Of the two, one covers some new language features in C++ Builder, but the one of most interest to Delphi developers I think is the one that demonstrates some of the VCL improvements and changes.

See if you can spot Nick Hodge’s deliberate mistake.  At least, I hope it was deliberate.  ;)

More videos and sessions should be coming online soon.

Anonymous methods are generating a lot of buzz in the Delphi community right now, being one of the bigger changes heading our way in the forthcoming Tiburon (Delphi 2009), along with Unicode and Generics.

Unlike Unicode and Generics however, the usefulness of anonymous methods is not nearly as clear.

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