ObjectPAL is short for Object-Oriented Paradox Application Language, which is the

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually def ...

used by the

Borland Paradox Paradox is a relational database management system currently published by Corel Corporation. It was originally released for MS-DOS by Ansa Software, and then updated by Borland after it bought the company. In mid 1991 Borland began the process to ...

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

application (now owned by

Corel Cascade Parent Limited, doing business as Alludo ( ), is a Canadian software company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, specializing in graphics processing. Formerly called the Corel Corporation ( ; from the abbreviation "Cowpland Research Laborat ...

). Paradox, now in its 11th version, is a constituent of Corel's Word Perfect X3 office suite, for 32-bit

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

. The language is tightly-bound to the application's forms, and provides a very rapid and robust

development environment In software deployment, an environment or tier is a computer system or set of systems in which a computer program or software component is deployed and executed. In simple cases, such as developing and immediately executing a program on the same m ...

for creating database applications for Windows. ObjectPAL is not a full free-standing

object-oriented language Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of '' objects''. Objects can contain data (called fields, attributes or properties) and have actions they can perform (called procedures or methods and impleme ...

. It belongs to the family of languages inspired by

Hypercard HyperCard is a application software, software application and software development kit, development kit for Apple Macintosh and Apple IIGS computers. It is among the first successful hypermedia systems predating the World Wide Web. HyperCard com ...

, with influences from PAL (wherever functionality could be kept the same),

Smalltalk Smalltalk is a purely object oriented programming language (OOP) that was originally created in the 1970s for educational use, specifically for constructionist learning, but later found use in business. It was created at Xerox PARC by Learni ...

, and Garnet (a UI language created by Brad Myers). While its objects do encapsulate

source code In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer. Since a computer, at base, only ...

, there is no support for polymorphism, and only a very limited

inheritance Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offi ...

concept, which is wedded to objects on a form which can be controlled by code placed on a higher object in a form's object hierarchy. However, for what it is, ObjectPAL provides a wideranging and versatile language for creating Paradox applications. The syntax and structure of the language resembles

Visual Basic Visual Basic is a name for a family of programming languages from Microsoft. It may refer to: * Visual Basic (.NET), the current version of Visual Basic launched in 2002 which runs on .NET * Visual Basic (classic), the original Visual Basic suppo ...

, but knowing Visual Basic would only help someone new to ObjectPAL in the sense that any other programming skill would be transferable to ObjectPAL. ObjectPAL was the successor to PAL, which was the Paradox for

DOS DOS (, ) is a family of disk-based operating systems for IBM PC compatible computers. The DOS family primarily consists of IBM PC DOS and a rebranded version, Microsoft's MS-DOS, both of which were introduced in 1981. Later compatible syste ...

programming language. With the advent of Paradox for

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

1.0 in 1993, which was then owned by

Borland Borland Software Corporation was a computing technology company founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad, and Philippe Kahn. Its main business was developing and selling software development and software deployment products. B ...

Corporation, ObjectPAL was born. Version 1.0 was quickly succeeded by version 4.5 that same year. It can be used as such as a web server scripting language when combined with the Corel Web Server Control OCX, which implements a server API similar to the CGI, and its standalone console, the Corel Web Server.

References

{{Authority control Domain-specific programming languages Borland

See also

References