Standardized Pascal class library

Wed, 10 Sep 1997 16:26:56 +0200

Hi everybody.

My name is Johan Larsson and I am the author of an application framework
named
EFLIB ("Extended Function Library"). EFLIB is primarily a set of data
structures - like
linked lists, trees, stacks, queues - streams, filters (conversion,
searching algorithms),
conversion, text handling, professional math OO classes (numerical
methods, math
objects such as integer class, complex numbers, matrixes, vectors,
expressions, etc) and
some other things. EFLIB is also intended to - within reasonable time -
contain a full
GUI. For more information, see http://www.ts.umu.se/~jola/EFLIB/.

I am writing to you since I am trying to get in contact with people who
can and want to
port my works for the Borland dialect of Pascal to other languages such
as Delphi,
FPK and GNU Pascal -- and any other language which could profit by
getting a
standardized class library. I also look for partners all around the
world. Maybe you
have some material you would like to publish together with EFLIB or as a
free
EFLIB-friendly product (see
http://www.ts.umu.se/~jola/EFLIB/Developing/Friends/)?

Why choose EFLIB? First of all, EFLIB will be distributed freely with
source and all -
that is, as soon as the juridical details have been worked out by
Swedish layers (within a
week or maybe a month). EFLIB can thus be used by any Pascal programmer
with
non-commercial objectives. Furthermore, EFLIB is written in a somewhat
different
way than other tools I have seen around. I have tried to create an
object-oriented
framework that promote extendiblity into every single detail. For
example, all data structures (or rather: ADTs) share common properties
defined in abstract base classes.
The same thing goes with math classes, streams and so on. Finally, EFLIB
is well-
documented since almost 50% of the source code is source code comments.
I therefore believe that EFLIB is suitable as a multi-platform Pascal
class library that can grow within
time - it can be improved and  extended whenever the user's or
developer's want it to.

Is EFLIB portable? Yes, I believe so! A high grade of extendibility,
modularity and a
high-level of abstraction tend to make platform conversions easier.
Also, EFLIB does
not contain any important MS-DOS-specifics (other than one or two
assembler in-lines
and a few procedures which is not much when one consider that EFLIB is
based on
at least 20,000 lines of source code).

I have been working on EFLIB for a long time. Not all EFLIB components I
have
produced are yet published. I have established a certain network of
programmers,
provide mailing list services, an EFLIB FTP site, SimtelNet distribution
and WWW
services.

Summary:
I am looking for people who would like to help me to create a
standardized class library
for every Pascal programmer.


Best Regards,
Johan Larsson
jola@ts.umu.se


PS. For more information about EFLIB, please feel free to check out the
following URLs:

- http://www.ts.umu.se/~jola/EFLIB/
- http://www.ts.umu.se/~jola/EFLIB/Manual/
- http://ftp.sunet.se/pub/lang/EFLIB/

Johan Larsson (jola@ts.umu.se)