Custom Programming Services

Assembly

The world communicates with the computer by submitting commands in the form of machine code, binary code consisting of a string of zeros and ones. The most direct way to do this is for the programmer to write the program in Assembly language, a human readable code very close to machine language. A tool such as MASM (in the Microsoft World) will translate this into machine code.

The programming task is challenging. Most programmers are not trained do it, and it takes far more time than normal programming. It is used when compact code is necessary, performance is critical, or there are hardware peculiarities that cannot be addressed with a higher-level language and is used only when absolutely necessary. Cambria has done extensive assembler programming in the past. The video conferencing program we wrote for Mitsubishi in the 1990s was a prime example of our prowess in using assembler.

C

C is second only to Assembler in its ability to create high performance software but without the enormous difficulty and expenditure of time required. C is the classic low-level language that is close to the hardware and allows access to system resources.

Leaving assembler aside, C is regarded as the language that can produce the fastest code. it is a language of choice for operating systems, network programming, compilers and interpreters for other languages, games, and scientific programming. Without the abstractions of higher languages that make life easy for the programmer, coding in C can be difficult.

This language was used extensively by Cambria in hardware projects in the early 2000s and is still in use by us today where performance is critical, memory is limited, and there is no need for object-oriented programming.

C++

A short way of describing C++ is that it can do everything C can do but adds programmer-friendly abstractions and most of all is fully object-oriented. Like C, it can generate code equal in performance to, or almost equal to, that produced by C. Because of its user-friendly modern additions, it is a fully general-purpose language useful for almost anything.

It is one of the few high-level applications that is also fully capable of low-level programming. In short, there is something for everyone. Some would say that it is hard to learn, but this writer would dispute that.

Hard to be proficient perhaps because the freedom to do everything is also the freedom to make mistakes. C++ was introduced in 1985, shortly after Cambria was founded and has been used by Cambria ever since. Today it is the language most used by Cambria programmers.

Delphi

As an old Delphi fan, I cannot do better than quote Shayne O'Neill:¹ "Delphi is one of the great tragedies of the IT world. Back in the 90s it was a decade ahead of anything in its class. It was reasonably priced, had a huge open source ecosystem of components and libraries, was productive and generated lightning fast executables... But over time management just trashed the whole product line... and it pushed the prices up so high that low end packages would be worth *months* of salary for beginner coders.."

Delphi is still a great product. It is still in use by Cambria and Cambria's internal systems still make use of Delphi code from years gone by. And it is still the fastest and best way to generate high performance Machine code. It is that rare example of a RAD language that can compete with the best on performance. But the Delphi community has shrunk, new programmers are not coming along due to prices and it is no longer popular.

Currently Delphi is owned and regularly maintained by Embarcadero who comes out with a new version every 6 months. Its small but dedicated community includes specialized fields such as industrial applications, financial services, and organizations with a need to maintain older systems.

Swift

Swift was introduced in 2014 and intended to replace Objective-C for programming Apple devices. It needed replacement. Objective-C was difficult for many to use, especially on mobile devices. Swift introduced a simpler syntax, modern memory management and error handling and other welcome improvements. Cambria has made use of Swift since its introduction but in recent years our clients have usually preferred that we use Xamarin, a language that allows us to create multiplatform apps.

Microsoft has discontinued support for Xamarin effective May 2024 so it is not a good idea to start new projects with this application. Prior to this announcement, here at Cambria we began to use Flutter in mobile programming projects where we might have used Xamarin.

Flutter/Dart

Dart is a general purpose programming language released by Google in 2011 to compete with JavaScript. It had significant advantages such as the ability to compile to native machine code but needed a tool (dart2js) to run in a browser by converting to JavaScript! Many of its advantages were neutralized by advances in JavaScript itself.

Flutter is a framework and toolkit explicitly developed to work with Dart as its programming language and take advantage of Dart’s advanced features such as fast compilation and UI friendly syntax. It was released by Google in 2017 and immediately began to improve Dart’s popularity. Today it is usually assumed that Dart is the language used when you speak of a Flutter app.

Flutter’s strength is ability to create high performing cross-platform apps from the same codebase, hot-reload that speeds development, a rich library with a consistent UI, and native like performance. Weak points include a relatively large app size and performance that is likely less than that of native web solutions.

Where appropriate, Cambria began using Flutter instead of Xamarin or Swift in mobile apps last year (2023). We have completed one full application and are working with others.