There are links to the wiki, at the bottom. But the main page should not go to the wiki. It's content should be reviewed before publishing.

However contributions to the text of the page are welcome. Assuming that:
- the kind of content was agreed (CHECK FIRST)
- the text is in an objective style. There is NO "Hey dude, this is cool" The style should be "Lazarus/FPC can do this" instead of "You can"
- page size (see below)
- Most welcome: Additions to the "tip of the day"

So, if you have additional points, or rewrite, even replacement of some of the page, then bring it forward.

This is about the text content. I am not going to react to style discussions (neither the above wording rules, nor layout or color). Simply because I do not have the time. If you find another developer who will, then that is fine.

Due to time restrictions, I will not be able to sort and merge (or argue about) hundreds of small patches. So contributions should either:
- have some substance (not just one sentence added)
- corrections of errors (spelling/content/fixing punctuation [currently not following a single style (argh)]) This will obviously be small.

*** Also, I have no plan to discuss, some of the rules listed here. *** That was done on the forum once, with the effect of getting 100 different opinions, with very few arguments. I have no time to repeat this.

Maintaining the web page, is actually not on my list, but in some cases, I squeeze some of it in. I will only react, to corrections, or serious new content proposals.
For content, I will either:
- agree, that I will look at your patch (once you produced it) and add it
- Tell you, that I will not look at that idea (that is not a rejection, but a "not me"). Then you need to find another developer. I will not enter an discussion on how I prioritize my time.

This is generally ok. Fine with listing fpc language features too.

But need some thought about, what goes on the feature, and what goes on the Why_use page.

Also measure the page of the main page. It is already quite long (height). Other pages should not grow indefinite (then they need sub pages, or links to wiki (marked as such)).
Rule of thumb: Add another 30% to current main page height: That is the absolute limit. Prefer not to reach it.

I wonder if I could make a slightly tangential comment here, using an analogy. What FPC/Lazarus really needs is not a party manifesto, but somebody to go on TV regularly and make the party case before the election: a Robin Cook or Boris Johnson figure that entertains as well as informs.

My own belief is that "the opposition" is not JavaScript or PHP. I think that it's Python, since that's what's being used for the quick hacks that once would have been done in Turbo Pascal or early versions of Delphi. And just as TP and Delphi hacks would have been put on a bulletin board or published via Compuserve or CIX, today's Python hacks- which are very often frontends to an Arduino or to a service such as Twitter- are capturing mindshare using publicity on websites such as Hackaday.

An accurate and attractive website is obviously important. But I think that the most good could be done by getting as many projects published (on Sourceforge, Berlios or whatever) as possible: if an idea strikes you then code it in Pascal, Polish it, Publish it and Promote it. Because if you've found a need for something then there's a fair chance that somebody else is also looking for it, and every project downloaded from Sourceforge etc. raises the profile of Pascal as a language and Lazarus as an effective IDE.

Martin Frb wrote

On 05/12/2013 09:15, Danny Weldon wrote: > Maybe we need a bit more information on the Lazarus home page about it.

I think in a very opposite way. The main page should have less information. It should be clear, elegant and attractive. It should give the most essential information for a casual visitor in few seconds, before he continues to some other page.
If the visitor got interested, there must be a visible and easy Download/Install button so he can test it.
The page now fulfills those requirements and I am happy for that, but it also has useless clutter which makes it look messy. For example Recent Forum Posts don't belong to the main page IMO. I expressed this same opinion also earlier but other people wanted all that clutter and I am OK with it.

Martin, apparently you are getting private mails about the page. Do you also have patches for it?
As a coincidence I got private mail from Christian Sciberras. He has revamped and modernized the PHP code but not touched the page contents. Especially the template engine was old and needed a revamp (according to him).
The sources are here if somebody wants to have a look : https://github.com/uuf6429/LazarusWebsite
I will test it ASAP (sorry Christian I didn't do it yet), and maybe put it in Lazarus test server for everybody to test. If it works as advertised, I will accept it.
Tomorrow is a national holiday here and I will spend time for Lazarus project then.

What about the patches that do change the contents? I was waiting for content changes already a long time. Who will be the final judge for them? They are always a matter of opinion.
If I am in a position to accept/reject those (hypothetical) patches, I fill follow my idea of a clear and elegant web page which respects the heritage of the project.
We will see when we get those patches...

Juha

Juha Manninen wrote

Martin, apparently you are getting private mails about the page.

Ok, I see it was not a private mail. Still, rest of the text is still valid.

Juha

this was about the "why use it page"

Martin Frb wrote

this was about the "why use it page"

Ok, sorry, now I have read the original post.

Juha

Juha Manninen wrote:
[...]

If sombody has a (svn) diff, applying a patch would be easier.

Marc

Ok, sorry, now I have read the original post.

Sorry if I caused confusion. I agree that the main page should stay clean. So on the whyuse page, perhaps you could add a link with the text:

Advantages of Free Pascal

which links to here:

http://www.freepascal.org/advantage.var

Maybe also something similar on the features page.

There's some more info here as well:

http://wiki.freepascal.org/Press_Kit

It's a start, however, those pages still doesn't list what modern programming features Free Pascal has such as:

(Please correct me if I am wrong, I quickly hacked this together)

Closures (Anonymous functions) See http://bugs.freepascal.org/view.php?id=24481 Generics
Associative Arrays Use TStringHashList
Enumerated Types YES
Built in Strings YES

Inheritance single/multiple
Foreach YES For i in ...
Proper Array Support YES
Array bounds checking YES
Array slicing Partial?

Nested functions YES
Interfaces
Properties
Exception handling
try catch finally
Support C Types ??

More?

Not sure if this should be on the Lazarus site
or Free Pascal, but it needs to be easy to find
for newcomers. ie. a link from whyuse, etc.

I started forwarding press releases of new Lazarus versions to ;)

Maybe someone should write an article or two, even for a month, or two, to be published there...?
(or for the matter, on any FOSS related news site whatsoever, there are lots) ... e.g. on the topic like discussed on the 'future of the desktop' from our perspective? (I'd do it if I had the time...)

Yeah we definitively lack good PR. As in press-releases /and/ Public Relations :J

-L.

"Danny Weldon" wrote

Closures (Anonymous functions) See

http://bugs.freepascal.org/view.php?id=24481
Work in progress

Generics

At least in 2.7.1 they are quite useable, but especially generic methods/functions/procedures are still missing (work in progress)

Associative Arrays Use TStringHashList

Ehm no. Better use a typesafe generic TFPGMap<,> or a yet to be implemented Delphi compatible TDictionary<,>

Inheritance single/multiple

Not full multiple inheritance, only through interfaces

Array slicing Partial?

What do you expect from array slicing?

Regards,
Sven
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