Hello *,

I've written a first small summary about our experiences at Systems 2005 in Munich, Germany, this week:
http://www.freepascal.org/wiki/index.php/Systems_2005

probably more detailed information will follow within the next few days.

Regards,
Sebastian

Those are a cool bunch of goofs in the picture.. :-)

It's a great news to know FPC and Lazarus getting more and more popular and starting to be counted in serious software development. I'm really glad to hear and see this. :)

I got few suggestions, especially to target more Delphi developers.

1. Maybe it'll better for public and new users to know 1 product instead of two: FPC (the compiler) and Lazarus (the IDE). Just like Delphi for the compiler and the IDE in a single package. I still got many times question like this: "what's the difference between FPC and Lazarus?" or "why I still need FPC if I already got Lazarus?". Because many new users think that Lazarus is also a Pascal compiler, another Delphi clone, or Kylix alternative. :p

2. Language/compiler support for (Delphi) package (.bpl?). I think this is the most significant problem for new FPC/Lazarus user who used to be a Delphi user. Custom component creation and installation seems to be too complicated and required much efforts in Lazarus, while it's a very simple task on Delphi. If they able to compile and use their Delphi components on Lazarus, it'll be a really BIG advantage.

3. Again... it's about language compatibility with Delphi 2005 (and newer). No, I ain't talking about .Net! Forget .Net, but don't forget new language features on new Delphi release. Ok... I agree if we skip the aesthetical-beauty and saving-key-strokes features, yes I know it's not worth it. But we should consider new language power features. To mention a few: sealed class, class constants, generics, etc. Staying as close as possible to Delphi language will give us more chances to get more users.

Just my 2 cents. :)

Regards,

-Bee-

has Bee.ography at
http://beeography.modblog.com

I think that FPC has to remain FPC, a language + compiler just like GCC. IDE and Lazarus could be run on top of FPC, like many IDE run on top of GCC. But what we really and always need is a very robust, lean and clean language/compiler and FPC guys are doing a nice job in this direction. Adding features on features and visual components lead to MFPC (Mammouth Free Pascal Compiler) that nobody wants. I think that FPC has to compete with GCC and not with Delphi. Taking FPC and Lazarus as 2 different projects is the way to go (my 0.02c).

jk

No, this doesn't match with our experiences we had at the systems: a lot of people said, yes, I tried fpc but I didn't like to work with the command line. When we asked, did you try lazarus, the answer was, no, I didn't know about it.

Florian Klaempfl wrote

When we asked, did you try lazarus, the answer was, no, I didn't know about it.

So I try lazarus.
I download it (Lazarus, new fpc, fpcsrc (?))
But I don't find it anywhere.
No lazarus, even in the Terminal.
I'm a mac osx user.
Can anybody help a newbee ?

ÉrIc Détrez
Mathématiques & informatique (Faidherbe Lille)

Europe pas morte ?
http://www.sauvonsleurope.org/

One must start X-Windows from terminal, then start Lazarus.

You could also try this site.
All are .dmg files, friendly to Macs

Try http://www.ca.freepascal.org/Lazarus/

P Davidson

Agree. DCC can be used separate from delphi too - maybe just the fact that not many people use DCC separately. It is better to educate people about how a compiler can be separate from the IDE, incase that person wants the full power to write their own IDE themself one day, or incase his IDE fails on him and he has to resort to emergency. As for whether the lazarus IDE should have its own compiled in compiler (as opposed to being separate), I would say if it makes lazarus significantly faster, then it would be worth it. I'm not sure of the latency time it takes to spawn a new process and etc.

Correct.

Ok - at least for delphians.
The 'systems' showed that there are a lot of non delphians interested in FPC+Laz.

Mattias

No, this doesn't match with our experiences we had at the systems: a lot of people said, yes, I tried fpc but I didn't like to work with the command line. When we asked, did you try lazarus, the answer was, no, I didn't know about it.

Of course, but I don't think you mean mean the projects have to merge, it just means the advertising has to merge (cross-advertise each other more).. I'm sure the FPC team doesn't want to merge with lazarus? Just change the marketing/advertising tactics right?

i.e. maybe in big bold font on the FPC website:
"Lazarus is the major IDE that uses FPC" or something similar.

In an FAQ section:

Question:
What is FPC exactly, and what is lazarus?

Answer:
If you come from a delphi background, consider FPC like DCC. FPC is not an IDE, just like DCC is not an IDE.

Question:
What is DCC, I don't know what that stands for?

Answer:
That is the compiler that powers the Delphi IDE.

And then to offer some more help with more confusions

Question:
But I thought DCC was just a command line compiler available?

Answer:
Yes, but it is the compiler that you are using in the Delphi ide, just that it is compiled into the delphi ide

Question:
So is FPC compiled into Lazarus?

Answer:
It is integrated so that it feels this way, but it is just called as a separate process. The FP-IDE has a compiled in compiler, and the lazarus ide might have one in the future or might not

Paul Davidson wrote

One must start X-Windows from terminal, then start Lazarus.

I know how to start X11.
Is it the right X-Windows ?
But how to start then Lazarus ?

I really feel stupid.

ÉrIc Détrez
Mathématiques & informatique (Faidherbe Lille)

Europe pas morte ?
http://www.sauvonsleurope.org/

that would be my preference, not that my preferences matter in the slightest.

i think the GCC analogy is right.

FPC is a darn sweet little compiler and could/should become as common on Linux at least as bash and perl and GCC are now so that it will see more adoption as an alternative to 'C'.

i know that is why i've become an FPC convert.

i got tired of pulling my hair out with 'C' for some of the small toys i was playing with for my flight simulator plugin work, but my "other" language, Java, just wasn't up to the task of building lightweight and performant code.

this is when i "discovered" Pascal and the FreePascal compiler tools.

i will admit that it took me a while to figure out how Lazarus was related, and i found the FreePascal and Lazarus sites confusing at first.

i think the one, most productive thing, both projects could do for themselves, and for the community at large, is to bring the two entities together, into a more cohesive looking and feeling website and to market them as layers of building blocks for doing plain pascal development with minimal tools or as a larger set of tools for doing GUI RAD.

but again, i wouldn't change them architecturally, other than maybe making integrated, easy to use/install "bundles" out of them.

FreePascal and Lazarus might want to look to how Sun and the Netbeans project have aligned the Java tools and the Netbeans IDE.

http://www.netbeans.org/downloads/index.html

this seems like an analagous model to that of FPC and Lazarus.

their (sun's) model is one where they offer the bundle that you need, where you may want a big thick bundle with the Java compiler and runtime and IDE, or you may already have the Java runtime and compiler, and just need the IDE.

imho, this would be the perfect strategy for FPC and Lazarus.

Tony

For Java the situation is different. There are lots of IDEs, but Free Pascal has only one major IDE.
Of course the talk is _not_ about a complete fusion of FPC and Lazarus. 'Only' the following parts should be merged:
- Website
- Download directories on the website. Especially we need a clear and short explanation of the different packages.
- The Wikis
- Documenation? But this is a major topic, which we should discuss separatedly
- Perhaps the bug system

There is no clear separation between FPC and Lazarus for the end-user. For example, an average user cannot tell easily if he has a problem with a component or function belonging to Lazarus or belonging to FPC. Furthermore, many topics in the wiki could be shared between both projects.

- Sebastian

Note:
Lazarus has different release dates than FPC, so bug tracking and download directories should only have related pages, but the difference must stay clear for the user. For instance the released and stable FPC 2.0 should not be confused with the lazarus beta.

True.

Mattias

I am in favor of uniting this parts. I think it adds a lot to both of the projects. Specially we should take a good look on how to improve the security on the websites.

- Documenation? But this is a major topic, which we should discuss separatedly - Perhaps the bug system

These parts could stay for the future as they may take a long time to be implemented or event to be discussed.

Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho

Éric DÉTREZ wrote

I know how to start X11. Is it the right X-Windows ?

Yes.

But how to start then Lazarus ?

Simply typing "lazarus" in the xterm window should work. If it doesn't, try

/usr/local/bin/lazarus

Jonas

Yes.
Of course it should be still possible to download single parts. But the main download page should list the full installers (for Win32) and Lazarus packages, together with a small explanation. For users without any experience the current scheme is much too complicated. As you know from Systems, for many people just the name 'Free Pascal' counts, as it indicates a Pascal based system -- the name 'Lazarus' does not. There is no clear hint on the Free Pascal website about the function of Lazarus, just a plain link. This costs us much of the existing potential.

- Sebastian

well, firstly, there appears to be at least one other decent IDE that i know of :

http://www.bloodshed.net/devpascal.html

but in any event, i'm not sure why that distinction is important.

i think the point of the bundling strategy is not in the number of IDE's.

i think there are a few more relevant points :

*) the IDE is kind of pointless without the compiler *) the compiler doesn't *require* the IDE.
*) giving people a complete, one stop development solution is a good thing.

but like Java, i think it would be of paramount importance to make sure that the compiler can also standalone, without the IDE and it's runtime, for those that want to use alternative IDE's, or where you want to be able to integrate the compiler in with an OS distro or what have you ...

and if this were my project(s), i personally _wouldn't_ advocate for merging all of that stuff together.

i would keep the projects mostly seperate *except* for the front pages of either site, where i do my marketing spiel about how the projects are complimentary AND i would make sure the projects cooperate enough so that they can always be bundled seamlessly with each other, and each projects download page should offer their own product AND the bundled product.

so the users get nice, easy to understand, packaging options both for just the compiler tools and/or the IDE, but the projects still get to run themselves how they want, and manage their own release cycles etc.

another thing that most java ide's do, which may or may not apply to lazarus, is that most IDE's have the ability to support more than one compiler suite at a time.

so for instance, the IDE might require java 1.4 for its own execution environment, but might support being able to use more than one java version for supporting the developer project, such as java 1.5 for instance.

having that type of decoupling and runtime compiler switching with Lazarus might be very handy in the future AND it would make it much easier for Lazarus and FPC to iterate versions on their own schedules, and allow users to upgrade just the parts that they need to, when they need to.

There is no clear separation between FPC and Lazarus for the end-user.

for a Lazarus end user I assume you mean ?

For example, an average user cannot tell easily if he has a problem with a component or function belonging to Lazarus or belonging to FPC.

and again, if they were bundled together, but also properly modularized, if the FPC or it's runtime was to blame for a bug, or Lazarus was, the source of the problem could be better identified because of the modularization, and then just the suspect part could be upgraded to solve the problem, rather than having to download the whole big bundle, after the bundle has been updated by the responsible project.

- Sebastian

Tony

Hi,

I am not a developer, but here is an idea:

The "About Lazarus" box could also show which FPC version is, or should be used with the current Lazarus and whetter it is OK or not.

It hapened to me also once that I was pointing to the wrong FPC compiler. This would be a simple solution to help the new users. Every user always open the "about" of any software and the "FPC version" number is a good reminder that they work togetter!

Sincerely

Alain Michaud

Lazarus is the IDE important for over 95% of all people.

Of course. But we need more integration between both projects. FPC is _not_ Java, but more like Delphi, so people are not aware of the fact that there is a distinction between the compiler (plus low-level libraries) and Lazarus.

Regarding bundling: Of course it will be still possible to download the distinct parts. But even on the wiki, it will get compticated if you have two wikis. What I have in mind is this: You're searching for a special application, e.g. sound output (wavefile output). Then you have only one single Wiki page which explains how to do that within Lazarus, and how to do it without Lazarus. This would explain the inner workings of any Lazarus automatically.

another thing that most java ide's do, which may or may not apply to lazarus, is that most IDE's have the ability to support more than one compiler suite at a time.

Yes but that is quite meaningless for the case of Free Pascal. I don't think that Lazarus ever will support the compilers of Delphi or Kylix. Those both projects are more or less dead already (Delphi will be dead, if Borland will continue their chosen path).

Yes. But what we need are two solutions: A simple version for the bulk of people ("download this single package and you'll get everything you need"), and the more specialized version, where you have better controls about used versions etc.

>There is no clear separation between FPC and Lazarus for the end-user. for a Lazarus end user I assume you mean ?

Yes and no. The average user doesn't know anything about FPC and Lazarus at all. They know (or might know) Delphi, and recognise FPC+Lazarus as a kind of substitute. But, as soon as they have a problem of any kind, it gets complicated. For example. I've personally faced many questions on the Lazarus mailing list, where Lazarus itself hasn't been the origin of the problem, but units distributed by FPC have been.

The average user is not able to identify the correct source of any problem. But if we can manage to provide a single source of documentation (especially the Wikis), there is a chance that many of the usual user questions will just drop out, making the whole support much easier.

- Sebastian

just to clarify what i was trying to say :

i wasn't neccessarily suggesting that Lazarus should support different Pascal compilers, though that might be a good thing.

i was more suggesting that Lazarus might do well to be able to easily switch between different installations of the Free Pascal compiler.

for instance, i run Gentoo (which has a rather messy bunch of freepascal e-builds on it, which at some point i intend to rectify) but where it has 1.9.4 and 2.0.0-r1 compilers available minimally.

in addition, i have an SVN checkout sitting on my hard drive locally.

being able to switch between the different compiler version easily might be of interest to some users potentially.

in any event ...

I Love Free Pascal !!

Long Live FPC !

;)

- Sebastian

Tony

I am in favor of uniting this parts. I think it adds a lot to both of the projects. Specially we should take a good look on how to improve the security on the websites.

<BlatantPlug>
A 100 percent Pascal based, secure Web Forum, Content Management System (CMS), Wiki, Bug Reporter, and program/unit Repository in the Pascal Server Pages project are being worked on. Including full XSS protection, range checking, and hidden source code on the server. </BlatantPlug>

I am not sure there is a symlink in /usr/local/bin.

I will make sure it is in the next release.

If /usr/local/bin/lazarus doesn't work, do this:
cd /usr/local/share/lazarus
./startlazarus

Vincent.