What's been going on with Irie Pascal?
The first thing to say is that there has been a change in plans. The next release of Irie Pascal (i.e. Irie Pascal 3) will not be aimed at web development. The plan now is for Irie Pascal 3 to target desktop development.
Another change is that Irie Pascal 3 will only support Windows. So that means saying goodbye to the other operating systems (Linux, FreeBSD, etc), at least for now.
I apologise if these changes are an unwelcome surprise to anyone.
Why this change of plans?
Well, its quicker and easier to target desktop development for Windows rather than targeting web development for a number of different operating systems. One reason for this is that by targeting desktop development I don't have to worry about web servers and hosting web applications.What's next
I don't want to go into too much detail, mostly because I don't want to raise any false hopes (I'm slowly learning my lesson about that), but right now I'm in the design phase. I've pretty much finished the design, but now I'm documenting it (double-checking as I go along).The next thing I will probably tackle is creating a few custom Windows controls. Windows comes with a common control library with most of the controls you need for a Windows application (buttons, labels, list boxes, edit boxes, and many more), but there are a few missing controls that I think will be very useful in many applications.
Posts
Hi Stuart,
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for the update.
Couple fo questions:
1. Will Irie Pascal 3 support Windows 64Bit systems?
2. Any ideas as to when Irie Pascal 3 will be availablef?
Really looking forward to it.
Keep up the great work :-)
Ok, let me see if I can answer your questions.
ReplyDeleteIf by "support Windows 64bit systems" you mean generate 64bit executables then I'm not sure. I'm not focused on that right now, but the world seems to be moving in that direction so all I can say right now is maybe.
In answer to your second question, I think it's better if I don't make any guesses right now. I've tried guessing in the past and that didn't work out so well.
My plan is to post regular updates on what I've actually done, and avoid making predictions about the future. I'm sorry, to dodge your questions, but I think this way is better.
Thanks for the encouragement.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI run my Irie Pascal programs on 64Bit computers and haven't seen any compatibility issues.
Think that Linux support (for web hosting) is important as Irie Pascal programs do run very well on both Windows and Linux platforms, which is great for web hosting applications.
What I think would be great would be if the .CGI output file was a single stand-alone program that didn't require either the IrieRT26.dll or the IVM.EXE to be included.
If you are not planning on supporting other platforms would this be something that you would consider for the windows-based output as it would make uploading and running it on shared hosting so much easier?
I have tested Irie Pascal on 64bit Windows and I also haven't seen any compatibility issues.
ReplyDeleteYes, Linux support is important for web development, but Irie Pascal 3 will not be focused on web development. I'm not saying that there will never be a future version of Irie Pascal that is focused on web development (and support Linux).
I like your suggestion about making the Windows .exes generated by Irie Pascal into stand-alone executables. I've added that to the plan.
I know that Irie Pascal is very good. I use a lot in Panama. I hope that new version is as good.
ReplyDeleteWhat is status of new version please?
Saludos
Buenos dias to Panama!
DeleteI'm working on one of the new controls (the most difficult one). I'll be updating this blog as I go along.
Saludos
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI'm going to give you some free advice.
Please do not abandon Irie Pascal for web development.
If you look at the trend of software development, I would probably say most new applications created will be web applications.
Also, people already doing web development are always looking for easier frameworks and languages to use for their web application projects.
Please consider pressing ahead with Irie Pascal for web development as a micro web-framework, with extension points for plugins which can be developed by other developers to increase functionality and features incrementally.
If you take the micro web-framework approach, you will not have to worry about building all features yourself. You can also target support for WSGI so that you will not have to worry about all the web servers out there to support as long as those web servers support the WSGI standard.
Please refer to these two popular micro web frameworks which should be a simple port for Irie Pascal.
(1) http://bottlepy.org/docs/dev/
(2) http://flask.pocoo.org/
Go RESTful.
Go MVC (or if you really want to shakeup the market, also consider component based development - i.e. web development that feels like desktop development - see ASP.net, Apache Wicket, Tapestry, Scala Lift, etc.).
Doing a micro web-framework should be more productive and far less work than starting a project for Irie Pascal 3 to support only desktop development on windows, and for only one OS, which is losing ground to mobile and tablet device options by the hour.
You will also be able to still have Irie Pascal VM support for many OS options, as all you will be doing is serving up pages, and providing DB access. You will then be able to jump back onto Irie Pascal for desktop development as a nice to have much faster, but only after ensuring that Irie Pascal has 64 bit support, and better support for threading.
Please use your time wisely. Look at the current market for software development, which is heavily driven by web development.
Why do you think Amazon EC2 is so popular, and other cloud vendors are falling over each other trying to woo web developers onto their cloud platforms?
Focus on the web, get some cloud/hosting vendors to advertise that they provide support for Irie Pascal on their cloud servers or OS installs for dedicated servers, and sit back and make money.
Next, get a book publishing deal on web development with Irie Pascal with Manning, Oreilly, Pakt, etc. to get more traction with developers wishing to adopt Irie Pascal. A book on desktop development can follow.
Also, again, please consider opening up Irie Pascal to other developers as an open source project. Start a Github repo.
Make money from all the derivatives of a popular open source project, such as book deals, appearances at tech conferences, training services, support for commercially available features, tools, IDEs, custom web UI components, a business optimized ivm, consultancy services, etc.
This is happening all the time and is the standard money making model for new open source projects and programming languages. E.g. Ruby on Rails, Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, Scala, Hadoop, Linux, Node.js, DJango, MySQL, JBoss, Eclipse, Python, etc.
Take a look at what companies like Redhat, and Oracle are doing with making money from their open source products.
MongoDB/10gen, and CouchDB/Cloudant are making money with their open source NoSQL DBs. They have contracts with cloud hosting providers such as Softlayer who provide support for those tech solutions as a product differentiation option.
This is not hard. Just open up the technology and allow for faster more wide scale adoption. Get other developers and companies interested faster.
If you abandon the web, you'll regret it!! You're sitting on a goldmine and you fail to see it.
If you need more advice, leave a message on your forum for me and I will respond, or send a message to mastermind1forever@gmail.com
Regards,
Cyber Bandit.
Hi,
DeleteI agree with most of what you have said, and I am not planning to abandoning Irie Pascal for web development. All I am saying is that Irie Pascal version 3 will focus on Windows desktop development. I haven't said anything about versions 4 and later.
Actually, I agree with much written by Cyber Bandit above.
ReplyDeleteI think that web development/smart devices rather than Windows desktop applications is the future.
Personally, I would love to see more web-orientated commands within Irie Pascal.
e.g. An Irie Pascal equivalent of the $_GET or $_POST commands.
It is possible to achieve this with the current version (Irie Pascal includes a useful example), but I would like to see a simple one-line command.
e.g. for the url www.mysite.com?name=joe&age=27
program test;
var
the_name : string;
the_age : string;
begin
the_name := $_GET['name'];
the_age := $_GET['age'];
end.
Good Luck.
Interesting idea. I appreciate the feedback.
DeleteHi Stuart,
ReplyDeleteDo you have a progress report for the new version?
kind regards,
Pete
Hi Pete,
DeleteI don't have an official progress report yet, but I can tell you what I'm working on today.
First let me recap just in case you missed it, Irie Pascal 3.0 will allow you to build modern looking Windows desktop applications (i.e. GUI applications). The current release (2.6) only allows you to produce console (i.e. non-GUI) applications. Release 3.0 will allow you to produce both types of applications.
I've been building a Windows application module that makes it easy to create windows/controls. So far I've built the basic functionality and today I will be testing it.
I'll post an official progress report after I finish the first set of controls.
Hi Stuart,
ReplyDeleteWhat is the latest progress regarding the new version ?
Will a beta or test version be available soon ?
Best wishes
Hi,
DeleteI'm still working on the Window application module I mentioned in my reply to the previous comment. I just got it working yesterday, but there are some improvements I want to make. After that I will start building the new controls.
So no, a beta/test version will not be available soon. I'll be posting progress reports as I go along.
Best wishes
Stuart
Hi Stuart,
ReplyDeleteJust checking in to catch up on any comments.
Hope the application module is progressing well.
Best Wishes.
:-)
Hi,
DeleteYes, the app module is done (and tested). I was planning on using it to start building the new controls, this past Monday, but I was approached to work on a short (a few weeks) project.
Best Wishes,
Stuart
Hi,
ReplyDeleteIs there an update please?
Is the app module testing going to plan?
:-)
Hi,
DeleteYes, the app module is done, but I'm working on another project for a client right now. I expect to be back working on Irie Pascal in August.
Thanks for the update. Will check back in August.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your project. :-)
Thanks, the project is going well so far.
DeleteHi Stuart,
ReplyDeleteDo you have any news regarding the new version?
Kind regards,
Pete
Hi Pete,
ReplyDeleteNo news just yet, but I'm expecting to have some by the end of this month.
Best Regards,
Stuart
Hi Stuart,
ReplyDeleteAny news mate?
Kind regards,
Pete
Hi, Pete, I'll have news soon!
DeleteChampion mate. Many thanks.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteIs there an update or perhaps a possible date of release for the new version?
No update or release date yet, but I should have an update soon.
DeleteHi Stuart,
ReplyDeleteAny news yet?
Kind regards,
Pete
Hi Pete,
DeleteI don't have an official progress report yet, but I can give you an idea of what's going on. Do you remember the application module I mentioned previously? Well it's now much more powerful. It use to be little more than a base window for building other windows, but now it's a much more complete framework for building GUI applications. I haven't actually started to test or use any of the new functionality, so I don't know yet how solid it is. I'm planning to post a progress report once I get a basic GUI app running on the framework.
Best Regards
Stuart
Nice :-) Good Luck with it.
ReplyDeleteKind regards,
Pete
An updates?
ReplyDeleteI'm still working on the application module, believe it or not. No update yet.
DeleteHas anyone tried to retrieve data from an API using Irie Pascal?
ReplyDeleteI believe that it should be possible if you use the right commands & parameters.
I haven't heard of anyone doing that.
Delete