OSNews:

OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/18592/Cross-Platform_Development_with_Free_Pascal_2_2_0 Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:09:20 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com How good is Lazarus/FPC? http://osnews.com/thread?269976 http://osnews.com/thread?269976 How good is Lazarus today? I was very interested in its development back in 2000-2002, partially because Kylix utterly failed. But then I learned C and GTK and kinda never looked back. I visited the Lazarus website from time to time, but their screenshots are severely outdated: they're still showing GTK 1 screenshots in 2007! This made me think that their development has halted or is very very slow.

Does the LCL still imitate the VCL or did they also add new things? The VCL is nice for mostly-fixed layout GUIs, but horrible for resizable dialogs because of the lack of sizers ala GTK and wxWidgets. Delphi 7 still suffers from this problem.

It's a shame to read that generics/template support is still in development. I think that any serious modern statically typed OO programming language should support generics/templates. Don't make me think back of the days when I had to write 3 different list classes just because I want to store different data types in it without requiring clients to cast return values.Edited 2007-09-10 16:39 Mon, 10 Sep 2007 16:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (FooBarWidget) Comments nice to hear http://osnews.com/thread?269981 http://osnews.com/thread?269981 Nice to hear that the pascal language is still around....as it is my first real language I learned when taking introductory courses in programming.

Wanted to try it out n freeBSD but since I'm running a 64 bits os, I wasn't able to install it. Hope they will deliver that version in the future, so I can experiment with it (what will I still know of that language...."-) Mon, 10 Sep 2007 17:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (djangoxl) Comments RE: How good is Lazarus/FPC? http://osnews.com/thread?269984 http://osnews.com/thread?269984 You can compile Lazarus to use GTK2.

oh, and Lazarus tries to copy the VCL and it really bugsme, they should have worked on a independent multiplatform style GUI like wxWidgets instead of trying to clone the VCL, don't get me wrong, VCL is the best productivity toolkit around for Win32 programing, but is not really designed to be multiplatform (no, Kylix doesn't count), it is more dessigned to work with the Windows API.

There is a project that is trying to make it possible:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/fpgui/Edited 2007-09-10 17:24 Mon, 10 Sep 2007 17:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Hiev) Comments From the article... http://osnews.com/thread?269987 http://osnews.com/thread?269987

One can wonder whether the speed of benchmarks says anything about real (graphical) applications. Comparing the response of the popular Java IDE Eclipse with the response of Lazarus will quickly convince one of the difference.

You compare and IDE that does background compilation, automatic syntax checking that not only checks the syntax but also offers solutions to said errors (via QuickFix), and also provides pretty much everything a developer can need to develop software, with a pretty barebones IDE. Is it any surprise that one consumes more memory and appears more sluggish than the other? What has this got to do with evil *waves hands about* JIT? Mon, 10 Sep 2007 17:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (evangs) Comments RE: From the article... http://osnews.com/thread?269990 http://osnews.com/thread?269990 Eclipse uses Java, a managed programing platform that uses tons of memory, that makes it slower, Lazarus use Free Pascal witch is native, is obvious that native is faster than managed, not need to complaine about it since both are good.Edited 2007-09-10 18:00 Mon, 10 Sep 2007 17:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Hiev) Comments RE: From the article... http://osnews.com/thread?269993 http://osnews.com/thread?269993 You're mistaken. Lazarus also does syntax checking, code-completion, has refactoring tools, context-sensitive help and tooltips. Further a debugger, two-way form editor, syntax highlighting offcourse snd you can add your own plugins. Everything a Pascal-programmer needs.

It only doesn't do background compilation (it can do syntax-checking, though) because you don't need that when all your program are compiled within a few seconds. Mon, 10 Sep 2007 18:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (loesje) Comments AmigaOS, MorphOS http://osnews.com/thread?269995 http://osnews.com/thread?269995 For those waiting for an updated port of FreePascal to OS4 and MOS, read here:
http://www.morphzone.org/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=9&a... Mon, 10 Sep 2007 18:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (p-OS) Comments RE: How good is Lazarus/FPC? http://osnews.com/thread?270001 http://osnews.com/thread?270001 I miss templates as well... TObject just doesn't cut it. Mon, 10 Sep 2007 18:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dr_evil) Comments osx / carbon http://osnews.com/thread?270007 http://osnews.com/thread?270007 i'm looking at the progress of freepascal every now and than because i liked pascal very much, back in the old days. the problem nowadays is developing GUI applications for mac os.

in the article it says, that carbon is near complete - but carbon is outdated and it's a question of time, till it's obsolete. no one wants to use carbon applications today. so my question is: what about cocoa?

are there chances that cocoa will be supported somewhen? i've searched the internet on this topic but can't find much. Mon, 10 Sep 2007 19:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (aurora) Comments RE: osx / carbon http://osnews.com/thread?270009 http://osnews.com/thread?270009 Cocoa requires Objective C, dunno if there's any way around that. Mon, 10 Sep 2007 20:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Johann Chua) Comments RE: How good is Lazarus/FPC? http://osnews.com/thread?270046 http://osnews.com/thread?270046 Delphi uses anchors for sizeable dialogs. This feature has been introduced even before Delphi 7. BTW, .Net uses the same concept just with a different name ("dock"). This concept is really easy and powerful. Mon, 10 Sep 2007 22:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (fbarns) Comments RE[2]: How good is Lazarus/FPC? http://osnews.com/thread?270049 http://osnews.com/thread?270049 Oh wow, I didn't know that. Thanks a lot.

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 22:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (FooBarWidget) Comments RE[2]: How good is Lazarus/FPC? http://osnews.com/thread?270050 http://osnews.com/thread?270050 Idiot. Templates are no replacement for Inheritance. Mon, 10 Sep 2007 22:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (WiggetyWhack) Comments RE: How good is Lazarus/FPC? http://osnews.com/thread?270052 http://osnews.com/thread?270052 Yeah... because sizing logic is so hard to do, if automatically done for me, I will use something else...

Chode. Mon, 10 Sep 2007 22:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (WiggetyWhack) Comments RE[2]: How good is Lazarus/FPC? http://osnews.com/thread?270057 http://osnews.com/thread?270057 Are you saying "I don't care because I can write sizing code myself"? What an elitist attitude. Just because I can doesn't mean I should. Give me one good reason why I should waste my time on micromanaging coordinates instead of focusing on solving the problem. Mon, 10 Sep 2007 22:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (FooBarWidget) Comments Lazarus http://osnews.com/thread?270081 http://osnews.com/thread?270081 Lazarus does not yet have the polish of Delphi, but it can create nice cross-platform applications. The Windows applications are really very good. Linux relies on GTK1, and dependency issues make supportimg all distributions difficult. The OSX Carbon components have really progressed rapidly - you can create usuable OSX, Windows and Linux apps simply by recompiling to the target OS.

I actually think that the Carbon/Cocoa distinction is a bit silly - Lazarus allows a user to create good applications fast, and I really think Carbon is so useful it will be supported for a long time, e.g. see

http://unsanity.org/archives/mac_os_x/carbon_vs_cocoa.php Tue, 11 Sep 2007 00:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (crlab) Comments RE[3]: How good is Lazarus/FPC? http://osnews.com/thread?270103 http://osnews.com/thread?270103 Jesus christ. We are talking about ONE function to handle resize... "Textbox1.Width = ParentDialog.Width - 540; Textbox2.Left = ParentDialog..Width - 1060;" etc. Seriously. You java/.NET folks need to get your head out of your ass... System.devices.cdRecorders.burnISO.FromFile(...) (or whatever the f--k that does all the work for you) does not make you a good programmer. And we aren't even talking about something complex like burning an ISO. We are talking ONE TO TWO LINES OF CODE IN THE ONRESIZE FOR EACH WIDGET YOU NEED TO HANDLE. And they aren't even functions! Simple value assignment. Loser Tue, 11 Sep 2007 01:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (WiggetyWhack) Comments RE[4]: How good is Lazarus/FPC? http://osnews.com/thread?270112 http://osnews.com/thread?270112 What kind of non-font-sensitive, non-language-aware, hard-coded piece of shit as that?

If you do resize logic wrong, then yeah, it's easy, but it's 2007 --- we're getting past the point where you can give a wrong answer to a hard question just because it's easier than giving the right answer. If you do layout _right_, it's hard, and it's something the toolkit better handle.Edited 2007-09-11 01:59 Tue, 11 Sep 2007 01:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (rayiner) Comments Total bunk http://osnews.com/thread?270153 http://osnews.com/thread?270153 The "IDE" that the article refers too is about as close to an "IDE" as notepad. What a bunch of misleading garbage. I read the article thinking dang man they must have something like Netbeans or Eclipse and what do you get instead, a friggin DOS based piece of crap that looks like the same friggin 386 compiler I used back in 1993 for ADA. Pascal was my first language and as such I kind of have fond memories of it since it is so easy to learn. So I was really excited when I read this article thinking I may have found a good cross platform solution for developing some GUI utilities that I need. Come to find out after downloading and installing the "IDE" it was nothing more than a DOS looking (yes I am not kidding) DOS looking piece of software right out of the pre-Win95 days. And I totally agree with the post above by evangs, comparing this to Eclipse is a complete mis-representation of the facts. Eclipse, Netbeans, Visual Studio, and SharpDevelop are light years ahead of this dinosaur and there is no friggin way you can compare them with "Free Pascal". So unless I am just not finding the right "IDE" on the Free Pascal website then this is a total joke and should not be considered a serious contender for any major development decision. If there is a real "IDE" for Free Pascal please post a reply with the location because I would love to see it. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 04:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (redbarchetta) Comments RE: Total bunk http://osnews.com/thread?270159 http://osnews.com/thread?270159 I wouldn't be very quick to judge an IDE just by it's look. The OpenDylan IDE has a distinct Win95 look to it, but in many respects it's more advanced than Eclipse or NetBeans (eg: full compiler integration). SLIME is a pre Win95-looking Emacs add-on, but it's much more advanced than NetBeans or Eclipse in ways that matter.

I used Eclipse for a couple of projects over the period of a year, and I'm not very impressed. It's basically got a lot of gimmicks to make up for two major weaknesses: no real integration with the compiler, and a language that requires lot's of wizards and crap to get anything done.

That said, I'm not saying the FreePascal IDE is any better, but rather that you'd be surprised how a primitive-looking interface can hide a lot of powerful features, which show themselves only when you use the thing to write a lot of code. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 04:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (rayiner) Comments RE: Total bunk http://osnews.com/thread?270160 http://osnews.com/thread?270160

The "IDE" that the article refers too is about as close to an "IDE" as notepad. What a bunch of misleading garbage. I read the article thinking dang man they must have something like Netbeans or Eclipse and what do you get instead, a friggin DOS based piece of crap that looks like the same friggin 386 compiler I used back in 1993 for ADA.

Hi, the included IDE is actually not as bad as you make it sound. It is a clone of Borland Turbo Pascal's IDE for DOS.

However, the IDE that was talked about in the article that can do RAD is called "Lazarus" and you can find it at http://lazarus.freepascal.org/

Lazarus really is a good IDE if you've used something like Delphi or the early versions of VB. It's very comparable to those. It also can do cross platform applications just like stated in the article, it really is just a simple recompile away from another platform. I'm just not a huge fan of Pascal, but if I was I'd definitely be all about Free Pascal/Lazarus, the speed of the compiler is just absolutely amazing after having used hello-world-in-c++-takes-five-seconds-to-compile-on-a-dual-core
GCC. Not that it is a fair comparison since C++ is a very difficult language to compile. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 04:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (the_trapper) Comments RE[2]: Total bunk http://osnews.com/thread?270169 http://osnews.com/thread?270169 Thanks for the link, I will check it out.. I figured there had to be something better than what I saw from the Free Pascal site. And as far as trying to compare the DOS version of Free Pascal to Netbeans or any other full featured GUI based IDE ( this is in response to the first guy who posted a response to my thread ) don't even think about going there. I would love to see someone sit down and whip out a GUI in FPC DOS at the same time someone is whipping out the same GUI in Netbeans and lets just see who gets done first. Anyway thanks for the link. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 05:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (redbarchetta) Comments RE: Lazarus http://osnews.com/thread?270176 http://osnews.com/thread?270176 So your evidence for Cocoa being slow is a blog post from almost 5 years ago? Cocoa was a new API back then since Carbon has existed since OS 9 times. These days, most of the development on OS X is focused on Cocoa. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 06:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (evangs) Comments RE[4]: How good is Lazarus/FPC? http://osnews.com/thread?270179 http://osnews.com/thread?270179 Uhm yeah, good for you. But I have 300 widgets. You still haven't given me a good reason to waste my time on 300 lines of code (probably more, because some widget's position depends on others, or depends on some conditions) instead of using that to solve a real problem.

As I said, an elitist attitude. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 06:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (FooBarWidget) Comments Pixel http://osnews.com/thread?270186 http://osnews.com/thread?270186 Just in case somebody didn't notice, Pixel image editor is written using mix of FreePascal, C and assembler: http://www.kanzelsberger.com Tue, 11 Sep 2007 06:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Brmbolec) Comments What about textual user interface http://osnews.com/thread?270198 http://osnews.com/thread?270198 As I am planning to use FPC on a small Linux system (read no X) I would like to know if there is _any_ textual user interface (such as TechnoJock's Object Toolkit) for FPC.

I know that FreeVision is "available" but I haven't been able to find any kind of Pascal documentation for it, only a reference that the FPC's IDE (not Lazareus) uses it.

Please post if you know anything. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 07:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Jonix) Comments Pixel Image Editor uses FPC http://osnews.com/thread?270200 http://osnews.com/thread?270200 In the latest LinuxJournal magazine there is an interview about the developer behind the image editor Pixel, one of the main strength is that it is very portable.

http://www.kanzelsberger.com/pixel/?page_id=12

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_image_editor Tue, 11 Sep 2007 07:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Jonix) Comments RE[2]: How good is Lazarus/FPC? http://osnews.com/thread?270203 http://osnews.com/thread?270203

There is a project that is trying to make it possible:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/fpgui/

That's correct. fpGUI doesn't try and be VCL compatible and talks directly to the underlying Windowing System. Which means any fpGUI based application has no dependencies on large 3rdParty libraries like GTK1 or GTK2 does. Which makes application deployment a breeze!

fpGUI now also has a Visual Form Designer to speed up your development. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 07:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ggeldenhuys) Comments RE: How good is Lazarus/FPC? http://osnews.com/thread?270204 http://osnews.com/thread?270204

The VCL is nice for mostly-fixed layout GUIs, but horrible for resizable dialogs because of the lack of sizers ala GTK and wxWidgets. Delphi 7 still suffers from this problem.

The LCL and VCL gets around this with a feature called Anchors. The LCL's anchors are a lot more flexible (better) than Delphi's ones.

BTW: The fpGUI project also features Anchors and should have Layout Managers (like Java or Qt) real soon. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 07:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ggeldenhuys) Comments RE: Lazarus http://osnews.com/thread?270206 http://osnews.com/thread?270206

Windows applications are really very good. Linux relies on GTK1, and dependency issues make supportimg all distributions difficult.

Lazarus can use GTK2 as well, but the dependency issue is still there. That is why the fpGUI project [http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/] has been started. It talks directly to the underlying windowing systems (Xlib or GDI) so there is no dependency issues.Edited 2007-09-11 08:00 UTC Tue, 11 Sep 2007 07:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ggeldenhuys) Comments RE[2]: Lazarus http://osnews.com/thread?270211 http://osnews.com/thread?270211 Why is GTK2 dependency a problem? I don't know any post-2004 Linux desktop system that doesn't have GTK2 installed. I think it's safe to say that 99% of Linux *desktop* systems have GTK2. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 08:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (FooBarWidget) Comments RE[5]: How good is Lazarus/FPC? http://osnews.com/thread?270214 http://osnews.com/thread?270214 What are you talking about here?

Lazarus has the BEST sizing attributes I have used in any widgetset/toolkit. It has both anchors and alignment and also a concept of "neighbors".

You can do virtually anything with all 3. Just coz you don't know shit about what you say doesn't mean it's not there.

+ the gtk style of "autolayouts" is 80s. It's useless. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 08:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Almindor) Comments Cross-Compiling Forgoten? http://osnews.com/thread?270215 http://osnews.com/thread?270215 Another feature for which FPC rocks is it's ability to generate code WITH GUI ELEMENTS (!!!!!!!) that can run on ARM based PDA's and Smart Devices. I have used it in arm-wince based devices.

Neat, clean and without the tons of GB's and setting mayhem that comes with MSVS. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 08:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (thanOS) Comments RE: Total bunk http://osnews.com/thread?270217 http://osnews.com/thread?270217 Where did you learn to read pal?

The "RAD" IDE is called Lazarus from http://lazarus.freepascal.org

The textmode IDE ala TP is called fpIDE and is part of the free pascal package (and btw. most fpc devels still use that because it had better gdb support in windows).

In any case next time, before you put something down, please try to read properly. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 08:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Almindor) Comments RE[2]: How good is Lazarus/FPC? http://osnews.com/thread?270223 http://osnews.com/thread?270223 > Delphi uses anchors for sizeable dialogs

Correct. It also has the "align" property, and has so since version 1. It is a bit unweildy (just as it can be with any resizable container that is aligned to a specific "area" of another container), but it's workable.

> .Net uses the same concept just with a different name ("dock").

Wrong. This is called "anchor" in dotNet. It works exactly as the Delphi version does too. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 09:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (memson) Comments RE[3]: Lazarus http://osnews.com/thread?270228 http://osnews.com/thread?270228

Why is GTK2 dependency a problem? I don't know any post-2004 Linux desktop system that doesn't have GTK2 installed. I think it's safe to say that 99% of Linux *desktop* systems have GTK2.

NO, not all distros come with GTK2. Kubuntu or any other KDE based distro doesn't come with GTK1 or GTK2. A bare bones X Window system (Linux or FreeBSD) comes with some lightweight window manager. Normally not with Gnome or some other GTK2 base WM.

Also installing GTK2 afterwards is normally a pain. It's not just a single package. It's gtk, gtk-comon, gdk, pango etc... A lot of packages just to get a GTK2 app running. Then lets talk about different versions on GTK2. Distro's are normally behind compared to the latest GTK2 version available, so your applications will have a hell of a time trying to run if it was designed with the latest GTK2.

Talking directly to XLib (like fpGUI does) removes all those problems! And your applications will run, no matter what lightweight or heavy WM you have installed. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 09:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ggeldenhuys) Comments RE: osx / carbon http://osnews.com/thread?270239 http://osnews.com/thread?270239 Carbon is considered deprecated by Apple.However not by the users, since it seems the main widgetset used on Mac. What do you think the Offices, Adobe Reader and the many Aquifications of X apps (like e.g. LyX)use?

Carbon is way full featured enough, and is better suited to be accessed from existing applications.

Cocoa is an application framework, not a pure widget set. Even to the language (admitted, you appear to be able to avoid Objective C, but it is harder) Tue, 11 Sep 2007 11:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (marcovtje) Comments RE[2]: How good is Lazarus/FPC? http://osnews.com/thread?270241 http://osnews.com/thread?270241 Lazarus has years of experience of porting the VCL to GTK. It is suitable enough. The nice part is the ease that people can use the native widgetset (GDI,GTK,Carbon) to improve the (OS specific) behaviour of the app, and mix OS independant with dependant components.

This avoids a bit the "lowest common denomitor" problem that a portable widget set has. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 11:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (marcovtje) Comments RE[2]: How good is Lazarus/FPC? http://osnews.com/thread?270242 http://osnews.com/thread?270242 (psht! Don't tell anyone!, there are generics beta in this release)

See the FPC wiki (when it is unslashdoted) for more info Tue, 11 Sep 2007 11:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (marcovtje) Comments RE[3]: How good is Lazarus/FPC? http://osnews.com/thread?270243 http://osnews.com/thread?270243 There is a layout engine as memson describes in the VCL (and LCL) If you don't know that, you obviously never seriously worked with it. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 11:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (marcovtje) Comments RE: nice to hear http://osnews.com/thread?270244 http://osnews.com/thread?270244 Actually the development version generates 64-bit FreeBSD binaries. Unfortunately 64-bit FreeBSD refuses to run them (probably some ELF header gotcha).

This has stalled the progress in this department. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 11:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (marcovtje) Comments RE[3]: Total bunk http://osnews.com/thread?270249 http://osnews.com/thread?270249 I never was able to accomplish anything in netbeans, so I can easily take your word for it :-) Tue, 11 Sep 2007 12:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (marcovtje) Comments RE: What about textual user interface http://osnews.com/thread?270251 http://osnews.com/thread?270251 Free Vision is a TP Turbo Vision clone.

There are some differences (most notably the "driver" part for kbd), but for the general framework, you can almost use the TP docs (and 3rd party books) verbatim.

And those are cheap :_)_ Tue, 11 Sep 2007 12:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (marcovtje) Comments RE[4]: Lazarus http://osnews.com/thread?270255 http://osnews.com/thread?270255

NO, not all distros come with GTK2. Kubuntu or any other KDE based distro doesn't come with GTK1 or GTK2.

Might be true for GTK1, but I am pretty sure every distribution ships GTK2 and Qt3, especially since the two are part of the library set specified by the LSB.

Also installing GTK2 afterwards is normally a pain. It's not just a single package.

All distribution package managers do dependency resolution, don't they? Tue, 11 Sep 2007 12:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (anda_skoa) Comments RE[5]: Lazarus http://osnews.com/thread?270260 http://osnews.com/thread?270260 No and no.

Gtk2 isn't present on some KDE only distroes, and vice versa. Gtk1 is even worse.

And package management is sometimes manual (see slackware, they DO have a dependency check tool, but it's not default IIRC).

But generally you're right. Distributing gtk2/qt apps isn't much of a problem in the "mainstream" linux desktop world. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 13:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Almindor) Comments RE[6]: Lazarus http://osnews.com/thread?270283 http://osnews.com/thread?270283

No and no.
Gtk2 isn't present on some KDE only distroes, and vice versa. Gtk1 is even worse.

Thank you. Glad somebody agrees.

But generally you're right. Distributing gtk2/qt apps isn't much of a problem in the "mainstream" linux desktop world.

Still doesn't solve the library version issue. You create a Qt app using the latest version of Qt 4.3. No distro I know includes that version. I think they are still on v3.x because of KDE.

So my point still stands. Using XLib (or GDI) directly as in the case of fpGUI, resolves all kinds of redistribution issues. Being a ex-Kylix developer I know all about redistribution issues and wasn't going to make that mistake again! Tue, 11 Sep 2007 14:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ggeldenhuys) Comments RE[7]: Lazarus http://osnews.com/thread?270291 http://osnews.com/thread?270291 The point stands, but you get non-native look & feel if you use xlib/GDI. Don't take me wrong, low dependencies are a strong point of FPC and it is only logical to extend this to the GUI. However, Lazarus with GTK2 uses real GTK2 widgets, Lazarus with Win32 uses real Win32 widgets, so it is close to the most native look and feel possible.

One nice thing about Lazarus is that one can choose, though. GTK1/GTK2/QT/Carbon or the dependency friendly fpGUI, you choose with the push of a button. No source code changes necessary. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 15:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dmantione) Comments RE[4]: Lazarus http://osnews.com/thread?270327 http://osnews.com/thread?270327 I didn't say all. I said most. And which distribution today doesn't support automatic dependency resolution? If I type 'apt-get install gtk2' then APT will automatically install whatever extra dependencies it has. Even FreeBSD's ports supports auto-installing dependencies.

I dare to say that if people refuse to install GTK in order to use your app, then your app is not worth installing anyway. Likewise, if a good app is written in QT, and I need that app, then I will make sure I have QT. I don't care about the GNOME/KDE "war". Even commercial apps like VMWare and BitRock Installer depend on GTK2 and they don't seem to be losing customers because of that.

Sure, there are hardcore geeks out there that absolutely to refuse GTK/QT (note that I didn't say GNOME/KDE) or other "bloat" because they're running a Pentium 300 with 64 MB RAM (or just because of irrational elitism), but those people consist of, like, 1% of the market. I'd gladly trade that market share with the amount of development time I save by using a good GUI toolkit.
It's a good thing to care about users and to minimize dependencies, but at some point there will be a point of diminishing returns. And I believe anything below GTK2/QT lies past that point.

"Distro's are normally behind compared to the latest GTK2 version available, so your applications will have a hell of a time trying to run if it was designed with the latest GTK2."

But what does that have to do with you, the developer? Just don't use the most recent GTK APIs and stick to the subset of APIs that were introduced in GTK 2.4 or something. The GTK API docs specifically mention the version where an API is introduced.Edited 2007-09-11 18:42 Tue, 11 Sep 2007 18:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (FooBarWidget) Comments RE[6]: Lazarus http://osnews.com/thread?270332 http://osnews.com/thread?270332 "Gtk2 isn't present on some KDE only distroes, and vice versa."
Kubuntu might not install it by default (dunno, I never used Kubuntu) but it sure does provide GTK2. One can install it in literally one command. Ditto for SuSE, another KDE distro.

"Gtk1 is even worse."
I don't think anybody cares about GTK1 anymore. GTK2 has been out for about 7 years now, and also has a much nicer API.

"But generally you're right. Distributing gtk2/qt apps isn't much of a problem in the "mainstream" linux desktop world."
If my app is a desktop application then I don't want its development to be hindered by distros that aren't serious about entering the mainstream desktop market. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 18:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (FooBarWidget) Comments RE[4]: How good is Lazarus/FPC? http://osnews.com/thread?270333 http://osnews.com/thread?270333 I wrote a commercial application in Delphi which is still being sold today, so you cannot really accuse me of not having "seriously" worked with it. None of the 3 Delphi books that I have, have ever mentioned the use of anchors. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 19:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (FooBarWidget) Comments RE[6]: How good is Lazarus/FPC? http://osnews.com/thread?270345 http://osnews.com/thread?270345 I have no idea what Lazarus does. I wasn't talking about Lazarus. I was talking about WidgityWack's post about manually writing resize methods, specifically the:

"Textbox1.Width = ParentDialog.Width - 540; Textbox2.Left = ParentDialog..Width - 1060;" Tue, 11 Sep 2007 20:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (rayiner) Comments RE[5]: How good is Lazarus/FPC? http://osnews.com/thread?270347 http://osnews.com/thread?270347 It's not elitist, it's just dumb. I see these sorts of "programmers" all the time. They think they're better because they do grunt work that can easily be automated by the language/libraries, instead of doing real thinking to solve real problems. Tue, 11 Sep 2007 20:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (rayiner) Comments RE[8]: Lazarus http://osnews.com/thread?270356 http://osnews.com/thread?270356

The point stands, but you get non-native look & feel if you use xlib/GDI

I write commercial software for a living and that statement is so over rated these days (quoted from my clients). With very popular apps like MS Outlook, MS Office, Windows Media Player, Winamp etc and even Windows Vista that all look non-native, the users have no problems using them! As long as they kinda work the same. My employer who commission my work on fpGUI even said the great feature of fpGUI is that they can select themes (looks) to make their product stand out above all other Windows applications.

One nice thing about Lazarus is that one can choose... your widget set with a push of a button.

That is still only a dream and doesn't work 100% as advertised. The support layers for the different widget sets are all at different levels of completion. We found using the LCL to develop cross-platform applications that needed to be consistant on all platfroms was a nightmare. Hence the reason we wrote our own widget set. The LCL is trying to catch a constantly moving target - the underlying toolkits are being developed at the same time as the LCL, plus they are trying to be Delphi/VCL compatible. Always playing catch-up! Make no mistake, I like the Lazarus IDE, I just have issues with the LCL! Tue, 11 Sep 2007 20:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ggeldenhuys) Comments RE[2]: osx / carbon http://osnews.com/thread?270402 http://osnews.com/thread?270402 Carbon being deprecated by Apple means the resources that go into advancing the entire OS X Platform are on the Cocoa front alone. The law of diminishing returns will soon see the Carbon stallwarts either jumping ship when the dinky is still available or not. Apple gave you guys a decade to move to Cocoa. Wed, 12 Sep 2007 04:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (tyrione) Comments RE[5]: Lazarus http://osnews.com/thread?270471 http://osnews.com/thread?270471 Well yes you're right, but also wrong.

As was pointed out to me also, there's versioning problems. For example Gtk has breakage between 2.0 and 2.8 regarding some functionality. Some functionality has been added. So if you compile for some Gtk2 version (eg: using SOME newer gtk2 functionality) you won't work on distroes with older gtk2.

The thing is, Lazarus/LCL tries to be low with new gtk2 stuff but I think even they need 2.4+.

It's much worse with Qt4. Since Qt is done in C++ anyone using non-C++ has to use a "C-Wrapper" lib. This lib is directly dependant on specific version of Qt4 (4.0, 4.1 etc.) so redistribution is next to impossible without recompilation (typical linux world), or carrying your own qt/gtk libs. But then you might fail on glibc (which breaks between eg: gcc4 and gcc2) Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Almindor) Comments RE[7]: How good is Lazarus/FPC? http://osnews.com/thread?270473 http://osnews.com/thread?270473 Yes sorry, the original post was below my threshold so I misunderstood. You're right on that front, and as I said, Lazarus has GREAT positioning and autosizing capabilities which have not been surpassed yet by any other model I used. (Netbeans 6, MS stuff including C#/.NET, gtk2(yuck), Qt). The only major stuff I didn't try yet is Cocoa/Carbon (which btw is the same thing in the bottom anyhow so macboys stop yelling "switch" on everyone) since I don't have a Mac. Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Almindor) Comments RE[6]: Lazarus http://osnews.com/thread?270510 http://osnews.com/thread?270510

The thing is, Lazarus/LCL tries to be low with new gtk2 stuff but I think even they need 2.4+.

Shouldn't be a problem, LSB 3.1 spezifies GTK in version 2.6
http://tinyurl.com/2seaeq

This lib is directly dependant on specific version of Qt4 (4.0, 4.1 etc.)

Since 4.1 includes the ABI of 4.0, anything linking against 4.0 should be able to resolve all symbols when linking against 4.1 Wed, 12 Sep 2007 11:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (anda_skoa) Comments RE[7]: Lazarus http://osnews.com/thread?270579 http://osnews.com/thread?270579 Yes but not vice versa and that's the problem

LSB is also a moving target. Too much moving. They will probably go to Gtk 2.8 or even 3.x (if such will happen) and then what.

I'm talking "forward" compatibility here, not backward.

Compiling on an ancient distro and distributing on new ones isn't the problem here. Compiling on new and making it work on older ones is.

Eg: in windows, I can compile on windows XP and if I don't use specific stuff (which by default LCL doesn't), I can happily run it in windows 95. Wed, 12 Sep 2007 14:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Almindor) Comments RE[8]: Lazarus http://osnews.com/thread?270632 http://osnews.com/thread?270632

LSB is also a moving target. Too much moving. They will probably go to Gtk 2.8 or even 3.x (if such will happen) and then what.

The plan is, as far as I know, to include new things but not to remove old things at the same time, but rather deprecate them and remove them later.

There was pretty much a consensus on this topic at the last desktop architects meeting I attended.

Compiling on an ancient distro and distributing on new ones isn't the problem here. Compiling on new and making it work on older ones is.

Hmm, if you are just using symbol also available on the old system?
I mean applying the same rules you mentioned about development on Windows. Wed, 12 Sep 2007 17:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (anda_skoa) Comments Forward compatibility for developers http://osnews.com/thread?270641 http://osnews.com/thread?270641 Well, one fundamental problem with the Linux model of backward compatibility is that a binary compiled on an old system will work on a new system (if the programmers do their work properly), but a binary compiled on a new system does not run on an old system, due to symbol versioning.

This even happens if you don't use any new functionality, i.e. your source would perfectly compile on the system.

On the other hand, a Win32 program compiled on Windows Vista can run on Windows 95 or even Win3.1+Win32s if no new functionality is used.

The result is that Windows sometimes may get a message "sorry, you need a newer Windows", but Linux users are constantly upgrading their systems, or compiling packages by hand. This is also the reason why different binaries are needed per Linux distribution. Wed, 12 Sep 2007 18:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dmantione) Comments RE[9]: Lazarus http://osnews.com/thread?270665 http://osnews.com/thread?270665 Not possible. GLibc for example has broken ABI. Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Almindor) Comments RE[6]: Lazarus http://osnews.com/thread?271192 http://osnews.com/thread?271192 "It's much worse with Qt4. Since Qt is done in C++ anyone using non-C++ has to use a "C-Wrapper" lib. This lib is directly dependant on specific version of Qt4 (4.0, 4.1 etc.) so redistribution is next to impossible without recompilation (typical linux world), or carrying your own qt/gtk libs."

C++ ABI is a PITA on linux, no question about it (I would say C++ is broken from a ABI point of view anyway). But otherwise, I don't get your problems: breaking glibc between gcc2 and 4 is really not a problem, they are like what, ten years different ? Also, binary incompatibility also arise on windows (I got a problem recently with file descriptor not being compatible between slightly different MS C runtime).

I tended to think that binary compatibility was the major problem on linux, but maybe the problem really is shared library: http://www.sagecertification.org/publications/library/proceedings/u... Fri, 14 Sep 2007 04:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ashigabou) Comments Free Pascal for Newbies http://osnews.com/thread?271419 http://osnews.com/thread?271419 Hi im a newbie programmer and I would like to know if there are any good tutorials for free pascal / lazarus so i can start learning.

Thanks! Sat, 15 Sep 2007 00:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (businessgeeks) Comments RE: Free Pascal for Newbies http://osnews.com/thread?271475 http://osnews.com/thread?271475 Yes, for example see: http://taoyue.com/tutorials/pascal/ Sat, 15 Sep 2007 08:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dmantione) Comments