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A Book on Todays' Language
Given the changing role of the language, its extension over the years, and the fact it
is now attracting new developers, I felt it important to write a book that offers com-
plete coverage of the Object Pascal language as it is today. The goal is to offer a
language manual for new developers, for developers coming from other similar lan-
guages, but also for old timers of different Pascal dialects that want to learn more
about recent language changes.
Newcomers certainly need some of the foundations, but given changes have been
pervasive even old-timers will find something new in the initial chapters.
Beside a short Appendix covering the short history of the Object Pascal language,
this book was written to cover the language as it is today. A large part of the core fea-
tures of the language hasn't changed significantly since the early versions of the
Delphi, the first implementation of modern Object Pascal in 1995.
As I'll hint throughout the book, the language has been far from stagnant during all
of these years, it has been evolving at quite a fast pace. In other books I wrote in the
past, I followed a more chronological approach, covering classic Pascal first, and fol-
lowing extensions more or less as they appeared over time. In this book, however,
the idea is to use a more logical approach, progressing through the topics and cover-
ing how the language works today, and how to best use it, rather than how it evolved
over time. As an example, native data types dating back to the original Pascal lan-
guage have method-like capabilities (thanks to intrinsic type helpers) introduced
recently. So in Chapter 2 I'll introduce how to use this feature, although it won't be
until much later than you'll figure out how to make such custom type extensions.
In other words, this book covers the Object Pascal language how it is today, teaching
it from the ground up, with only a very limited historical perspective. Even if you
have used the language in the past, you might want to skim thought the entire text
looking for newer features, and not focus only on the final chapters.
Learn by Doing
The idea of the book is to explain core concepts and immediately present short
demos that readers are encouraged to try to execute, experiment with, and extend to
understand the concepts and assimilate them better. The book is not a reference
manual, explaining what the language should do in theory and listing all possible
corner cases. While trying to be precise, the focus is more on teaching the language
offering a practical step-by-step guide. Examples are generally very simple, because
the goal is to have them focused on one feature at a time.
Marco Cantù, Object Pascal Handbook
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