I've been hearing this kind of stuff since at least 2002. Still using Delphi and waiting for judgment day. It is funny how VB'ers were for some time the most vocal group preaching Delphi's imminent demise, and then they were struck with the "Visual Fred" fiasco. Many of them had to learn OOP the hard way, many didn't and are still supporting VB6 apps.

Anyway you can use the open-source Free Pascal or other proprietary solutions for Pascal. With both Delphi and Free-Pascal current multiplatform capabilities, I bet many companies that unsuccessfully tried to migrate Delphi internal apps to Java, C# or other offerings are having a second thought about it.

In my experience (about 20 years professionally working with Delphi, since the first version), the biggest advantage of Object Pascal over C++ is its strong typing discipline. It makes a program more maintainable on the long run, and errors are easier both to avoid and find. Pointer and String handling are also better in Pascal IMHO, and finally compilation time is also much shorter, which is not something to be disregarded when debugging a big project. Against Java or Python, desktop applications are usually more responsive with Object Pascal as it outputs machine code without JIT or GC involved (and usually Delphi will output a single .exe, without the need for any DLLs). Sure enough, you have to remember to destroy your objects, although newest versions of Delphi can use ARC on mobile platforms. My 2c. Sure I've already used all 3 (Python, C++ and Java) when I needed, but I've never felt as productive in any of these as I am in Object Pascal. So maybe the language has it's values.

"While stressing over Ebola, the media is oblivious to true public health threats like obesity, heart disease, drunk driving, diabetes, and the like."

No, it's not. Actually, no matter how much the media repeat warnings about these issues, PEOPLE (a part of them) is oblivious to these public health issues. I dare you to watch CNN or read MSN, HuffPo or any news aggregator a day without something being said about at least one of these issues, mostly (in US) obesity. We even had a mayor on NYC that went into a series of highly controversial steps to prevent obesity (limiting size of sodas, really? Coach potatoes would buy 2 of them). it's just that some people doesn't pay attention because they don't want to change their lifestyle.

Ebola is something "new", so gets more flash from news outlets since people will cringe for, well, news. It's the way people work, unfortunately. In a BTVS season, the much bigger issues above would be the Big Bad. Ebola is just the monster of the week. Granted, it gets full attention now, but once current crisis is gone, I doubt you'll hear about it until another outbreak.

Hi Mr. Stroustrup, Thank you for C++. It is my language of choice.

Why the static initialization order problem was not addressed in recent reforms of the language ?

It does not seem very hard to fix. Although I am aware of the workarounds I do not like them. In my opinion we need to fix what is broken before adding more features. Thank you for your attention, Mauricio Gomes.

Yeah, but you seem to forget that those privately owned complexes are only profitable beyond a certain level of occupation. For they, to place somebody in prison for whatever reason is always welcome.

At least once.

Just a small correction. The language is Assembly. Assembler is the tool. Best regards.

You know what, maybe winning the civil war was not such a good idea. Maybe you guys could reconsider and cut the south loose.