For me it all began with
an Olivetti M-24 and a copy of Turbo Pascal 3.2.
This was back in the mid-80s when Microsoft was a
minor company best known for a disk operating system
called DOS and ‘home computer’ was a
contradiction in terms.
I had never intended to write
programs. However, I soon became curious as to how
this ‘software’ stuff
worked - or, as was often the case, didn’t work.
Finally, when a friend introduced me to Infocom’s
classic adventure game, Zork, my curiosity got the better
of me. I had to know how a mere computer could hold a
self-contained world in which you could open doors, pick
up objects and get eaten by grues. At first I tried programming
my own adventure game using the free GW-BASIC interpreter
that came with my PC. But soon sense prevailed and I
realised I needed a better programming tool. Thank Heaven
a friend of mine recommended Turbo Pascal!
In the years since then, Pascal fell out of favour.
For a while it seemed that ‘serious
programmers’ used only C or its more complicated
brother, C++. I must confess that I have never been in
love with C++. Powerful it may be, when used by a first
rate programmer. But whenever I write in C++ I secretly
yearn for the clarity and simplicity of Pascal.
About ten years ago, Borland’s Delphi brought
Pascal up to date. An elegant programming system for
Windows, this provided a superb visual development environment
and object orientation. When Delphi’s creator,
Anders Hejlsberg, subsequently left Borland to work for
Microsoft, I initially feared that Delphi was on its
way out. In fact, Delphi goes from strength to strength.
The latest version, Delphi 2005, even includes support
for Microsoft’s C# language. And who was the chief
architect of C#? By strange coincidence, a certain Anders
Hejlsberg! This month's bitwise has not one but two Delphi
columns, an historic interview with Anders Hejlsberg
and an exclusive interview with marc hoffman, project
manager of Chrome - the latest incarnation of Object
Pascal for .NET.
Bitwise isn’t all about Delphi,
however. In fact, we don’t have any hard and fast ‘agenda’.
We aren’t particularly pro (or anti) Borland, Microsoft,
Windows, Linux, PC or the Mac. In fact, we shall be taking
an interest in all kinds of hardware, software, technologies
and trends which we feel may be of interest to the technically
literate user. Sometimes we’ll be covering mainstream
topics, at other times we may go zooming off at eccentric
tangents. Our aim is not only to be informative but also,
above all, to be interesting.
This month we have articles and tutorials on programming
languages ranging from Smalltalk to C#. In addition,
we have reviews of DVD and video editing software, astronomy
software, books and a guide to upgrading a PC. And that’s
just for starters. Next month should be even better,
For example, we’ll
have…
…ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
If you want to be the first to know about forthcoming
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See you in July!
Huw Collingbourne
(Editor)
Added late at night after a long, long day, June 1st
- our launch day Just one day online and already a number of people
have asked how to leave comments and feedback on Bitwise.
Some have asked if there will be a
forum? The short answer is.... well,
maybe. The honest
truth of the matter is that I had planned to add a forum
when or if Bitwise gained enough readers to merit this.
Naively, I'd assumed this might be at the very least
some months away. From the volume of email feedback I've
had today alone, I am beginning to revise this idea.
However, I don't want to rush into this. So, for the
time being, I've decided to go the old fashioned route
and open a Letters
Page. If you have any comments that
you are aching to make, please email them to me
(see the contacts page)
marking the email 'Letter To The Editor'.
