Ruby vs Pascal

Ruby is one of the most popular languages for developing web sites. As a result, there's an abundant amount of documentation, sample code, and libraries available for learning the language and getting your project up and running. The most popular features are just 'gem install' away. Additionally, it is easier to find Ruby jobs because of this.

Ruby has a very clean syntax that makes code easier to both read and write than more traditional Object Oriented languages, such as Java. For beginning programmers, this means the focus is on the meaning of the program, where it should be, rather than trying to figure out the meaning of obscure characters.

presidents = ["Ford", "Carter", "Reagan", "Bush1", "Clinton", "Bush2"]
for ss in 0...presidents.length
    print ss, ": ", presidents[presidents.length - ss - 1], "\n";
end

Ruby has a large ecosystem of tools and libraries for just about every use. Such as ORMs (Active Record, DatabMapper), Web Application Frameworks(Rails, Sinatra, Volt), Virtualization Orchestration(docker-api, drelict), CLI tools(Thor, Commando), GUI Frameworks(Shoes, FXRuby) and the list goes on. If you can think of it, there is probably a gem for that ( and if not you can create your own and share with the community).

The Ruby language is equipped with the necessary features to learn the essence of algorithms.

In online playground environments like ideone.com, measures have been taken to prevent beginners from going astray by restricting the use of external libraries such as Python's NumPy and SymPy.
Even in such constrained Ruby execution environments, the required features for learning algorithms are fully available.

Many of the algorithms that should be learned are documented in the book "Hello Ruby: Adventures in Coding." For example, the cake serving problem in the book leads to topological sorting, which is a graph theory concept useful in project management for creating Gantt charts.

To evaluate the effectiveness of algorithms with a level of complexity comparable to topological sorting,
it is necessary to be able to solve mathematical computation problems up to the high school level easily.
As shown in the table below, using only Ruby's standard library, it is possible to solve high school-level math problems effortlessly.
However, other programming languages may not be able to perform such computations in online playground environments.

To experience the superior performance of algorithms, it is important to challenge oneself by reimplementing good algorithms. Ruby's standard library includes implementations of excellent algorithms. For instance, the algorithm for solving linear equations, which has been widely known since the era of Fortran, is used within the code of SolvingLinearEquations through the "/" operator. Reimplementing code from Ruby's standard library serves as an excellent learning resource with high reusability and efficiency.

The SolvingLinearEquations function mentioned above demonstrates the benefits of duck typing and forced type conversion between objects of different types in arithmetic operations. While Rust also has features like duck typing, the implementation of "forced type conversion" is still far from being realized.

# Title: "(1) Cake Serving Procedure Problem"
require 'tsort'

class Hash
  include TSort
  alias tsort_each_node each_key
  def tsort_each_child(node, &block)
    fetch(node).each(&block)
  end
end

puts 'Tasks'
task_names = {
  'A' => 'Arrange the plates.',
  'B' => 'Set the spoons.',
  'C' => 'Place the birthday cake on the table.',
  'D' => 'Spread the tablecloth.'
}
p task_names

puts 'Preceding Tasks'
preceding_tasks = {
  'A' => ['D'],
  'B' => ['C', 'A'],
  'C' => ['A', 'D'],
  'D' => []
}

steps = preceding_tasks.strongly_connected_components
puts 'The appropriate steps are as follows:'
steps.each do |task_candidates|
  p task_candidates.map { |task| [task, task_names[task]] }
end

p "#(2) Equation Solving Rule"
def SolvingLinearEquations(y, a, b)
   x = (y - b) / a
end

p "(2-1) Real Solution", SolvingLinearEquations(1.0, 5, 0.5)
# => 0.1

p "(2-2) Fraction Solution", SolvingLinearEquations(Rational(1, 1), Rational(5, 1), Rational(1, 2))
# =>  (1/10)

p "(2-3) Imaginary Solution", SolvingLinearEquations(1 + 1i, 5, 1.0 / (2 + 2i))
# => (0.15+0.25i)

p "(2-4) Complex & Fraction Solution", SolvingLinearEquations(Rational(1 + 1i, 1), Rational(5, 1), Rational(1, 2 + 2i))
# => ((3/20)+(1/4)*i)

p "(2-5) Matrix Solution with Large Integers", 
   SolvingLinearEquations(Matrix[[Rational(1234567890123456789890, 1), Rational(0, 1)]],
                                                Matrix[[Rational(1234567890123456789890, 1), Rational(1234567890123456789890 * 2, 1)],
                                                             [Rational(1234567890123456789890, 1), Rational(1234567890123456789890 * 3, 1)]],
                                                Matrix[[Rational(1234567890, 1), Rational(123456789, 1)]] )
# => Matrix[[(3703703670366790122789/1234567890123456789890), (-2469135780244567900789/1234567890123456789890)]]

p "(2-7) Matrix Solution with Large Integers, Complex Numbers, and Fractions", 
     SolvingLinearEquations(Matrix[[Rational(1234567890123456789890, 1i), Rational(0, 1)]],
                                                 Matrix[[Rational(1234567890123456789890, 1), Rational(1234567890123456789890 * 2, 1i)],
                                                               [Rational(1234567890123456789890, 1), Rational(1234567890123456789890 * 3, 1i)]],
                                                Matrix[[1234567890, 0 + 1i]] )
# => Matrix[[((-3703703671/1234567890123456789890)-(3/1)*i), ((2469135781/1234567890123456789890)+(2/1)*i)]]

Lays out an easy to follow and opinionated MVC pattern that teaches best practices through necessity.

It's the fore-runner and trend setter for TDD.

Object oriented programming is one of the most important concepts in programming.

Meta-programming provides efficiency and freedom.

No indentation increase development efficiency.

Because of the verbosity and easy syntax, Pascal language is relatively easier to be learned and understood, even for someone who has no programming knowledge. It's said that Pascal code —if written well— is like reading pseudo code.

Pascal / Object pascal was used in schools during the 2000's to teach kids the basics of object oriented programming.

Pascal's syntax is clear and concise, for example:

procedure test();
begin
  DoSomething();
end;

Numerous strong compile time checks with optional runtime checks ensure one doesn't do stupid things and even when one does (because the compiler can't prove it at compile time), the binary will check and report it at runtime.

Correct modular programming implementation with proper namespacing, no file inclusion hack.

Pascal development tools are available almost on every available platform, especially using Free Pascal. Pascal language is available on desktop like Mac, BSD, Linux, Windows, Solaris, etc.; on mobile like iOS, Android, etc.; also on managed environments like Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and .Net/Mono framework . There are even some Pascal to JavaScript transpilers such as Smart Pascal, so you can write client side web app using Pascal as well, if you really want to.

Being known as the programming language for education, especially in the 90's, there many academic reading and tutorials available on the internet.

The compiler is fast, really fast. Compared to C/C++, the delphi compiler is designed to compile a decent sized desktop application in seconds rather than minutes.

Using the Free Pascal Compiler (the main Pascal distribution) you can code in a language that can be procedural and imperative now, but it can became object-oriented simply adding a directive at the start of the source

Visual Basic may have predated Delphi but Delphi was the ground breaking visual designer which set the standards expected today by most GUI developers. Its rich component set was well designed, structured and extensible, it even has the ability to display live data from the attached database in its data controls.

You can put Assembler code in Intel or AT&T formats, to achieve great results of speed and accuracy. It is possible to create Dynamic Link Libraries or their equivalent in Unix-like systems so it's relatively easy to use and powerful.

Both shipped with implementations and spread all over the web. Both natively written or bindings to libraries written in other languages. Typically to build non-trivial applications there's no need to surf the web as many things are implemented already. Streaming, output templating, socket & networking, web, database, image manipulation, high performance graphics, (de)compression, (de|en)cryption, regex, unit testing, json manipulation, google API, indexing, multithreading, external process management, the list just goes on and on!

From the early roots of Pascal, Delphi has been developed and is still actively supported. It is used in many desktop applications today, and even supports multi platform coding.

It was developed as a teaching language and it shows. No syntax pitfalls and gently encourages good style.

There are large collections of third party components, many free which enable developers to add wide ranging and complex functionality to their code with ease

Most code from the Turbo Pascal days in the 80s still compiles, yet the language has since been adapted and extended with modern concepts, introducing OOP and interfaces, exception handling, native Unicode support, anonymous methods, generics, ARC and more.

FreePascal is available on/for Intel x86 (including 8086), AMD64/x86-64, PowerPC, PowerPC64, SPARC, ARM, AArch64, MIPS and the JVM. Supported operating systems include Linux, FreeBSD, Haiku, Mac OS X/iOS/iPhoneSimulator/Darwin, DOS (16 and 32 bit), Win32, Win64, WinCE, OS/2, MorphOS, Nintendo GBA, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, Android, AIX and AROS.

Object Pascal is being used to write custom kernels (Ultibo) and operating-systems for various ARM boards. So the way you work with the code scales from low-level to pure OOP high-level. Object Pascal has the same level of depth that you find in C/C++ but with added productivity.

Lazarus and Delphi are both incredible GUI design tools, making rapid development a reality.

Making changes to a GUI doesn't mean switching tools or waiting for things to load, it's right there as part of your core tools.

Object Pascal language still evolving and being updated by Delphi (Embarcadero) and Free Pascal team (Lazarus).

For desktop development, Delphi is productive, the code is easy to understand, compilation speed is blazing, and it produces well performing applications that are easy to deploy. The perfect balance between C# and C++.

The compiler generates fast and optimized code. No stop-the-universe garbage collection.

The new Delphi compilers are powered by Automatic Reference Counting to ease development.