Hello,

I would like to announce a small poll.

Context:

Web (runtime) applications are abundant.

At my company, desktop is only considered as a last resource (but use cases vary, obviously).

Today, you perfectly can program the web (browser) using FPC's pas2js.

Using pas2js it is also possible to develop VS Code, Atom plugins or Electron applications.

This week in Be.Delphi, (and last week in DüsselDorf, Germany) TMS Software has unveiled a VS Code plugin: an Object Pascal RAD IDE.

It is based on TMS Web Core, which uses pas2js and the free OmniPascal plugin to give a RAD experience in VS Code. That means that effectively, you can do your development in the cloud with the VS Code web version.

Further integration of this VS Code plugin with FPC can be expected.

This will mean that soon, you'll be able to do full stack development in VS Code using object pascal. (or any other language, since VS Code is language agnostic)

This has raised the question whether a dedicated Object Pascal IDE - such as the Lazarus IDE - is still a necessity. Various avenues can be explored.

Since I am a firm believer in 'Measuring is knowing', I have created a poll:

https://forms.gle/c3QD82UBa3KW6nMz9

Please give your opinion there. It's just 1 question so it won't take long.

Cross-posted on the lazarus forum, feel free to forward to relevant channels...

Michael.

The question whether Lazarus should be remade as an Electron style app? Do you mean the IDE or all the API/widgets?

I've been using Sublime Text for years but we lack good language server support. Omni Pascal offers this for VSCode but I don't see it's open source so I'm making my own language server when time allows.

Lazarus is a buggy and cumbersome program but I don't see how remaking it in Electron/pas2js would be a better idea when we have these good alternatives like VScode/Sublime Text

Regards,
Ryan Joseph

The IDE. That implies the API/Widgets.

I've been using Sublime Text for years but we lack good language server support. Omni Pascal offers this for VSCode but I don't see it's open source so I'm making my own language server when time allows.

I don't think it's open source. It's free, for the moment.

Lazarus is a buggy and cumbersome program but I don't see how remaking it in Electron/pas2js would be a better idea when we have these good alternatives like VScode/Sublime Text

Hence the last option: use the codetools and designer to implement RAD features in VS Code.

I must say I am shocked to read you consider Lazarus "buggy and cumbersome". In my experience it's way better than Delphi as an object pascal IDE. I'm generally more productive in Lazarus than in Delphi, due to the superior code tools.

Michael.

On Nov 23, 2019, at 5:26 PM, Michael Van Canneyt via lazarus wrote: The IDE. That implies the API/Widgets.

One of the reasons like Lazarus is because it's native right? I use VSCode for the debugger but I don't like it's a slow and mushy feeling web app. Native is not compatible imo.

Then we need to make our own language server and plugins for FPC. My personal preference would be for the FPC team to support some official plugins for popular editors like VSCode/Sublime Text. I do all that stuff myself and it takes lots of time and I don't always do a great job. ;)

I've never used Delphi but Lazarus is feels extremely dated compared to moderns IDE's like VSCode (and my personal preference of Sublime Text). The strong point of Lazarus is of course actually understanding Pascal but we do we need it when language agnostic IDE's have grown so much?

Regards,
Ryan Joseph

Well, for me, "the web" is not a viable (sole) option. I still have a lot of use cases where standalone apps on various platforms are a much better option. Trying to shoehorn a web based app on each and every use case just doesn't make sense.

Yes, Lazarus isn't "perfect", but for the most part, it has so far done the job for me. Across various platforms (with macOS caveats due to the very nature of that crummy environment).

It would  be good to include Pas2JS with the possibility to design web based UIs, it just gives one more option to do everything with one environment/IDE.

I personally loath VSCode just as much as VS itself (or XCode, for that matter) or Eclipse. The appeal of Lazarus for me is that it even "feels" Pascal, not just a tool that happens to support ObjectPascal, but just as a sideshow...

Ralf

I am missing the option "No change wanted towards this direction". Without this option the poll is biased.

I am missing the option "No change wanted towards this direction". Without this option the poll is biased.

this is my humble opinion, too

Werner Pamler wrote

I am missing the option "No change wanted towards this direction". Without this option the poll is biased.

That is the first option: Remain an independent IDE.

Having an optional way to edit HTML in a rad way would simply be a plugin.

Michael.

I have no idea.

We have enough on our plate as-is.

Those are editors, not IDEs

The strong point of Lazarus is of course actually understanding Pascal but we do we need it when language agnostic IDE's have grown so much?

Yes, we do, because that is exactly why I am so productive with Lazarus.

VS Code, Atom or anything else doesn't even come close to providing all the code tools Lazarus provides, and I've tried lots of plugins.

Michael.

Hm. I edited the first question to make it more clear, now the poll has an extra result section :(

Michael.

On Nov 23, 2019, at 5:43 PM, Ralf Quint via lazarus wrote: I personally loath VSCode just as much as VS itself (or XCode, for that matter) or Eclipse. The appeal of Lazarus for me is that it even "feels" Pascal, not just a tool that happens to support ObjectPascal, but just as a sideshow...

Why the hate towards VSCode? I think it feels mushy next to a snappy c++ built app like Sublime Text but I've been really impressed with all the work Microsoft has put in. It feels better for typing than Lazarus does and it looks more modern/tighter. I now us VSCode for my Pascal debugger now even. The plugin system is far ahead of the cryptic system ST uses so I hope those people are paying attention to what VSCode is doing.

This is all my perspective as Mac user and I don't admit that Lazarus looks better on Windows and even Linux.

Regards,
Ryan Joseph

Really? On my linux it has a bright menu, everything else is dark style. Is this considered modern? Even very basic things like Ctrl+Mouse wheel for changing the font size does not work. Maybe this is more modern (like e.g. all those apps which are proud when getting features in 2019 real programs got in the 80th) but I do not want it :)

Once having voted the current results are displayed. But when I want to see later how the poll has evolved I can only vote again -- that's probably not what you intend. Either add a button to display the current results, or don't display results at all until the poll has ended.

El 23/11/19 a les 23:58, Michael Van Canneyt via lazarus ha escrit:

Oh, so that's the reason why the 82% of the votes isn't selectable in the poll.

Bye

Werner Pamler wrote

Once having voted the current results are displayed. But when I want to see later how the poll has evolved I can only vote again -- that's probably not what you intend. Either add a button to display the current results, or don't display results at all until the poll has ended.

The results should be visible any time according to the options, but I'm not very knowledgeable about google forms: I'm not a poll expert.

So currently I won't touch any of this, because I might break it even more. When I close the poll, I will publish results.

In each case, if current trend continues, it's pretty much clear what the general direction is. Not that this came as a big surprise, but as said: "messen heißt wissen"

Michael.

For my 2 cents, keep Lazarus as an independent, native code IDE. We do instrumentation packages for manufacturing robots, and “the Web” is simply not an option. Laz makes us at least 10x more productive than any other option (and we’ve tried other options - we still maintain code in C++ and C# using VS and it’s a nightmare compared to the Lazarus environment).

What really scares us is that all the mainstream OSes are becoming so Web and mobile centric - the way M$ is rumbling I seriously wonder if and how they’ll support any native development in the not too distant future. Lazarus, with it’s native abilities for Linux, gives us a clear path out should M$ abandon manufacturing and the desktop in general - and we are most appreciative!

Keep up the good work!

Be well,
Dave H.

Link to results
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdOKANJzS80Od8IyI8xRzlvjlM0iorpwuM7-y2JdhomNcLtsA/viewanalytics

Daithi Haxton wrote

For my 2 cents, keep Lazarus as an independent, native code IDE. We do instrumentation packages for manufacturing robots, and “the Web” is simply not an option. Laz makes us at least 10x more productive than any other option (and we’ve tried other options - we still maintain code in C++ and C# using VS and it’s a nightmare compared to the Lazarus environment). What really scares us is that all the mainstream OSes are becoming so Web and mobile centric - the way M$ is rumbling I seriously wonder if and how they’ll support any native development in the not too distant future. Lazarus, with it’s native abilities for Linux, gives us a clear path out should M$ abandon manufacturing and the desktop in general - and we are most appreciative!

We are also using Lazarus for hardware related stuff with no help at all from the web!

Now even MS is abandoning their Windows desktop applications like Microsoft Office....
The latest Office 2019 seems to be the last one you can install on your PC and work with in the absence of the Internet, they even promote NOT using Office 2019 in some official pages! And they offer NO updates to Office 2019. Just shows where this is heading.

I for one spend 3-4 months every year in my cottage where we only have mobile Internet and at speeds that vary depending on how many neighbors are visiting the island all at the same time. In popular summer weeks speeds go down into low single digit Mbit/s.

Needless to say it is impossible to use web based stuff there....

I voted to keep Lazarus stand-alone!

I think this is *the* main advantage of FPC/Lazarus: you can use it for almost every type of application on any platform (sorry C64 users, we do not have a solution ... yet ;)).

May I quote you in discussions :)))? Here in Germany, Sweden is always taken as an example where even the smallest cottage has internet by fiber.

Simple: money.

If it is in the cloud, they can work with subscriptions.

No Pay = No Office.

If it is on your PC, they don't control it.

Michael.

That is exactly what I give as the reason for using pascal:

I don't think there is any other highlevel language that covers so many platforms.

The only scalp missing on our belt is the mainframe.

Michael.

For clarity:

The question in the poll is not meant to imply that we must abandon native development. On the contrary: services, processes that talk to hardware and background processes are IMO still best done as native apps.

The proposal is just concerning HOW you program: the editor you use.

It's perfectly possible to use VS Code or any other editor that uses web-technology for its GUI to create native apps.
It doesn't matter to VS Code or atom whether it calls FPC, pas2js or the TMS Web compiler.

The point is that Lazarus does not and cannot cover all aspects of a typical larger project. Editors like VS Code and Atom can, given the huge wealth of plugins that exist out there.
If we had to set up a project today to copy functionality of all Atom or VS Code plugins, I probably wouldn't live long enough to see that project completed.

Lastly - but I don't know how much of an argument that is - young people are used to sleek UIs as offered in VS Code or Atom. The Lazarus IDE is confusing to them: it's origins are clearly in the RAD era, which (so I'm told) is all but abandoned today.

At least, that's some of the feedback I get.

Michael.

Michael Van Canneyt wrote

The point is that Lazarus does not and cannot cover all aspects of a typical larger project.

No, but if I really need it, I can develop it easily myself because I know Object Pascal. Even simple things like adding support for Ctrl-Alt-Shift-I to add an internalerror number for the compiler (which took me maybe 15 min with lazarus) would be an endeavor of several days with VS Code for me. I wouldn't even know where to start.

Editors like VS Code and Atom can, given the huge wealth of plugins that exist out there.

After the Firefox/Thunderbird plugin disaster, I try to ignore and never depend on any functionality provided by plugins. It could be gone with the next update/upgrade.

If we had to set up a project today to copy functionality of all Atom or VS Code plugins, I probably wouldn't live long enough to see that project completed.

It doesn't help if VS Code even cannot do simple things right like zooming of the source code window or keyboard navigation in the menu.

Yes, this fits in the overall picture: app developers are proud about features ("hey, my app can now copy&paste") real programs got in the 80ths.

Op 2019-11-24 om 11:35 schreef Florian Klämpfl via lazarus:

No. More importantly it gives independence. Something that external tools don't give. If they wither or change direction, or do the umpteen API change you have an immediate problem and risk getting caught in an infinite catch-up

Same here :-)

I am aware of this problem, and that is why I think npm is such a disaster.

But fair is fair:
Lazarus is going the same way with their online package manager.

Actually, the zoom was demonstrated on thursday on Be.Delphi (too show that VS Code works well on high DPI, in difference with Delphi).

So it should be possible somehow. I know Atom can.

I understand your scepticism, and share it to a large degree :-)

So, it seems we can already now be labeled "dinosaurs" ;-)

Michael.

That argument cuts both ways.
If you need an improvement in your IDE you need to do it yourself. If the external tool implements it, you get it for free.

So that means it's a trade-off. Do you wish to spend your time fixing broken external dependencies, or do you wish to spend it implementing new things yourself ?

Asking the question is answering it ;-)

Michael.

Op 2019-11-24 om 11:54 schreef Michael Van Canneyt via lazarus:

It's perfectly possible to use VS Code or any other editor that uses web-technology for its GUI to create native apps. It doesn't matter to VS Code or atom whether it calls FPC, pas2js or the TMS Web compiler.

I use Delphi, Visual Studio (2015/17), MP Lab X (which is a Netbeans based horror) and a bit Lazarus.

VS is quite smooth, but the differences are mostly in the details. Delphi is still prefered as editor, but I could get to used to VS if I spend some time with it. But the language choice is the main reason. And no having some plugins is not a solution, it just makes you a second tier user. If I change to VS (or whatever other IDE) I will also change language.

MP Lab X is the worst. Slow, extremely long startup with loading umpteen plugins and quite a bit of instability/non-determinism. (it is for embedded C targets btw). Plugins work more often NOT than they do. This is what I fear with VSCode. All these arguments were also made for the move of Microchip to Netbeans too, and they never really delivered.

Delphi actually has a very annoying bug that causes popup texts in the IDE to get into some loop that either require killing or restarting the IDE. Unbelievable for a 25 year old product that costs serious $$$.

Lazarus has very rare crashes (that it closes down unexpectedly). Fairly minor, my biggest beef is debugging (with popups and visualizers) is not up to par.

Like? For editor ? For designer? For project types?

If we had to set up a project today to copy functionality of all Atom or VS Code plugins, I probably wouldn't live long enough to see that project completed.

The problem is that if you now switch from Lazarus to vscode, with that project probably the same would happen before all proper plugins are done.  There will be things not quite doable to VSCode, and in the end you never get on par.

Conformists will never change to something that is different. Even if it superficially looks like it. Consider those groups lost for the most part.

History taught: the less dependencies, the better. Just look at FPC and GPC.

Op 2019-11-24 om 12:23 schreef Michael Van Canneyt via lazarus:

Oh dear. I thought you are now of the age that you no longer believe in such unicorn statements?

GCC, LLVM, ring a bell? In a previous message I already mentioned Netbeans, and we have had such discussions about Eclipse too (the big IDE to rule all IDEs 10 years ago).

Even if it works, having a good quality set of plugins, dealing with versioning and a project that probably moves much faster than yourself and doesn't care about you is quite hard. Making own ready to install distributions and keeping them up to date for extended periods is even worse.

Not dependencies, rework the plugins over and over again, probably for each major version, and then finding out the bit you relied on is deprecated.

I really like a package I can just install and works, rather than constantly messing with plugins that are never really it.

I think you vastly overestimate getting good quality VSCode plugins that make it match Lazarus for basic functionality.

Well, that's my answer too.

Michael.

Agree.

The sentence was only meant to indicate that there are a lot of them.

Michael.

Yes. While Lazarus has no git plugin (one of the things I miss), it does not matter that VS Code has one which, when opening the compiler dir, tells me that the project is too big and it won't really work. So no difference with lazarus.

Michael Van Canneyt wrote

This will mean that soon, you'll be able to do full stack development in VS Code using object pascal. (or any other language, since VS Code is language agnostic)

While VS Code is an impressive editor, it is still not an IDE. There is a reason why Visual Studio is still going, and why JetBrains is keeping growing.

I use VS Code (or Sublime Text, which is a lot faster) for small code edits in Go, TypeScript and JavaScript, but for bigger refactorings or analysis, nothing beats WebStorm, GoLand, IntelliJ, etc.

IMHO, you cannot replace a full features IDE like Lazarus with VS Code. You could, however, replace it with an IDE built on IntelliJ - their platform has proven again and again (PyCharm, CLion, GoLand, etc.) that they can deal with basically any language. Give that thing a proper UI designer and you even have the ability to create desktop applications. Too bad no one ever integrated Qt or Gtk (designer) into it.

I-Pascal (http://www.siberika.com/) is kinda going there, at least for basic stuff. If (and that's a really big "if") you intend to leverage existing tooling to (re)build an IDE which has more than just web development in mind, consider JetBrains' IntelliJ platform as a base. I guess once you tought it how to properly parse the language, you get a lot of code tools stuff out of the box. Basically leaving you with the form designer.

Btw. for me, personally, Lazarus (and the VCL) still beat any other desktop UI frameworks out there. I found none that is nearly as convenient to use and I still use it regularly to build desktop (tool) applications that I want to be cross platform.
My stack is: Go for backend, JS/TS for web frontend and Lazarus/FPC for desktop. I don't have any clear contender for native mobile apps yet, though. May go (hehe) with Go (gioui) there.

How are debugging capabilities in VS Code?

thanks,
Dmitry
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.lazarus-ide.org/pipermail/lazarus/attachments/20191124/c713025e/attachment-0001.html>

Dmitry Boyarintsev wrote

How are debugging capabilities in VS Code?

For pas2js/TMS Web core, you can debug as it works in Lazarus. It was demonstrated on the Be.Delphi event thursday.

For native apps, I have no idea. According to this:

https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/cpp/cpp-debug

it should be possible.

Michael.

Dmitry Boyarintsev wrote

How are debugging capabilities in VS Code? thanks, Dmitry

For web development (JavaScript), good. For everything else it doesn't come close to a real IDE.

As I said ... I can use VS Code for small stuff. The moment I have to do "serious" work, I switch to WebStorm/GoLand/CLion/IntelliJ. -------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.lazarus-ide.org/pipermail/lazarus/attachments/20191124/cc45a221/attachment.html>

Michael Van Canneyt wrote

I must say I am shocked to read you consider Lazarus "buggy and cumbersome". In my experience it's way better than Delphi as an object pascal IDE. I'm generally more productive in Lazarus than in Delphi, due to the superior code tools.

Ryan, I have to agree 110% with Michael here. If you want to see "buggy", then take a look at the last few releases of Delphi. I got *so* frustrated with it, and wished I could be using Lazarus instead. Everything around Delphi is terrible. The IDE stability, the language features, the lack (or missing or worse wrong) documentation etc. I have no idea why anybody still uses Delphi!
Unfortunately, the project I was working on was purely VCL based, so I had no choice. :-/

Regards,
Graeme

Ralf Quint wrote

I personally loath VSCode just as much as VS itself (or XCode, for that matter) or Eclipse.

I haven't really used VSCode, but as far as I understand, it's a editor, not an IDE. The other point being, that it doesn't run on FreeBSD - a platform I use very often. Web only apps is not really my cup of tea. I don't always work where there is good any any internet. It took me a *long* time just to get used to our company using GSuite instead of something like LibreOffice.

As for your comment about Eclipse. Just recently I boasted to Michael about how awesome Eclipse and IntelliJ are (I do Java development these day). They are like night and day compared to Delphi or Lazarus. The amount of feature, how well they understand your code, the refactoring ability, debugging features etc are all out of this world.

As for XCode - now there I fully agree with you. I helped out on our iOS product for a while. XCode is just weird. :-)

Regards,
Graeme

Marco van de Voort wrote

No. More importantly it gives independence. Something that external tools don't give. If they wither or change direction, or do the umpteen API change you have an immediate problem and risk getting caught in an infinite catch-up

Also, myself and companies I worked for have been bitted by the fact that you used closed source software. I feel web apps fall into that same category. If the software vendor disappears (or the website), so does your development tools.

Even IntelliJ IDEA seems to be prone to that issue. Just the other day we had about 500 developers that couldn't run IntelliJ for a couple of hours because the licensing server went down. We had to download and install the 30 day trial version of the Commercial edition so we could all get going. I just fired up my Eclipse and continued working as normal - no license server used! The many benefits of fully open source development tools.

Regards,
Graeme

Michael Van Canneyt wrote

If the external tool implements it, you get it for free.

And if they don't decide to implement it, you don't get have filed quite a few Feature Request and Bug Reports for IntelliJ IDEA. Many bugs were prompts fixed, but the feature requests has to go to a community voting system, and some have been around for years and not implement yet.

Regards,
Graeme

Don't care about FreeBSD, but it might just be the "modern" thing that someone else (Ryan?) mentioned why I loath both VS and VSCode. It could be for a good part that I am used to the Borland (WS) keyboard mappings and the general editor behavior, after almost 40 years, those have become second nature (and are thoroughly missed whenever I have to use some other environment).

Web only apps is not really my cup of tea. I don't always work where there is good any any internet.

Same here. Specially with the added discomfort of the recent PSPS (Public Safetly Power Shutdown) in our area, which are supposed to become a more common thing now, where we had twice in 10 days the power out for 30h and 38h respectively, which also means that during that time, there is no Internet service either (and no phone, TV and those of us here not on public water supply but on a well, without water, if they didn't have a separate generator for the well pumps). With a generator running to keep the fridge and freezer running as well as basic lighting, I could at least work just fine on my laptop for two long days programming in Lazarus, only interrupted by feeding the dogs and refueling once in a while the generator. And I am within the LA metropolitan area, just minutes from the sprawling urban area...

I don't do Java anymore, if I can by any means avoid it. There are a few other reasons why once in a while I might be forced to use Eclipse (or one of its derivatives) and it is just a bloated, slow as molasses carp...

As for XCode - now there I fully agree with you. I helped out on our iOS product for a while. XCode is just weird. :-)

Weird would be an extremely nice way to put it. At least they lowered the amount of masochism necessary when starting to transition from ObjectiveC to Swift. Not that this would overall make it more palatable...

Ralf

Ralf Quint wrote

be for a good part that I am used to the Borland (WS) keyboard mappings and the general editor behavior, after almost 40 years, those have become second nature (and are thoroughly missed whenever I have to use some other environment).

Oh, I know exactly how you feel. I had a double dose of that 6 months ago, when I had to switch to OSX as my daily development system, and I had to learn IntelliJ IDEA and it's shortcuts. I'm still finding my way, but getting better. 30 plus years of using a PC and 20+ years of using Delphi/Lazarus development tools is a hard habit to kick. ;-)

other reasons why once in a while I might be forced to use Eclipse (or one of its derivatives) and it is just a bloated, slow as molasses carp...

I've heard many say that, but I have not experienced that (maybe older versions from many years ago had that issue). On my desktop PC, which is now 6 years old (Intel i7 system), it starts faster than the latest Delphi does. And while working in it, I experience no performance issues at all.

My work MacBook Pro is a lot newer and faster than my desktop, and it definitely doesn't have any performance issues with Eclipse or IntelliJ IDEA. The latter does require more memory, and the fact that if you want to work with multiple projects, you need multiple instances of IntelliJ is not ideal (that's where Eclipse workspaces work very well - though I do close the projects I don't need open).

Regards,
Graeme

El 24/11/19 a les 19:47, Graeme Geldenhuys via lazarus ha escrit:

Web only apps is not really my cup of tea. I don't always work where there is good any any internet.

But you can run a custom web app on a local server, no internet needed. I never wrote something like that, but I have some applications where that could be useful.

Bye

El 24/11/19 a les 22:35, Luca Olivetti via lazarus ha escrit:

Correction: I *did* write a web app (using lazarus and freepascal) but a) not of the kind I was thinking of when I wrote the previous message and b) I forgot about it :-D

Bye

But that web server is another app that you need to install and support, and another source for dependencies likely out of your control. And certainly nothing that a single user (who just wants to get his/her work done with it) commonly wants to deal with...

Ralf

Op 2019-11-24 om 22:35 schreef Luca Olivetti via lazarus:

Sure, basically when we did webapps we always had local installs for testing etc. But if it is to work on a single laptop, it must not reference any service on the web. So you must even be able to generate it with other locations for default javascript scripts.

I never wrote something like that, but I have some applications where that could be useful.

Mostly testing, and when you have to. But it is not something I prefer, more a hard way to do a simple thing

On Sat, Nov 23, 2019 at 5:04 PM Michael Van Canneyt via lazarus <

what about this plugin:
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=alefragnani.pascal

it seems like it has been out there for 2 years already.

thanks,
Dmitry
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.lazarus-ide.org/pipermail/lazarus/attachments/20191124/b763c2c5/attachment.html>

On Nov 24, 2019, at 8:20 AM, Dmitry Boyarintsev via lazarus wrote: How are debugging capabilities in VS Code?

On Mac it's pretty good I would say but recently I came across a bug (which VSCode claims was from a plugin) that crashed it while debugging (ironically) a Lazarus app. It's ultimately just a LLDB front end so it has the same problems with viewing strings but I still prefer it over Lazarus and I've been using it for that last few years.

Regards,
Ryan Joseph

El 24/11/19 a les 22:56, Marco van de Voort via lazarus ha escrit:

No, that's not what I meant. I meant an internal network with an application specific server used by many clients.

Sure, for me it's easier to develop a rich native client with lazarus, but I wouldn't mind if, just for *some* specific cases, lazarus allowed me to easily develop a full fledged web application, independent from any external server. It seems that the infrastructure is mostly there (fcl-web, pas2js, etc.) it "just"[*] needs some support from the ide (that's what this poll was about, right?).

[*] I know it's not easy, hence the double quotes

Bye

In order to see the full potential of web components, the IDE needs to be web-enabled. This can be done through recreating the IDE as a web application itself (VS Code, Atom, electron etc) or by allowing it to talk to a browser (by embedding the browser, or invoking the browser somehow). Both approaches are possible.

In that sense, this is indeed what the poll is about.

Michael.

I am aware of it. I see 2 differences with OmniPascal:

1. You have access to the sources. This is better than OmniPascal. (I still suspect omnipascal will become paying one day)

2. It uses GNU globals to implement the needed functionality. This is less powerful than OmniPascal which uses an AST to implemment it's functionality.

Michael.

On Sat, Nov 23, 2019 at 5:26 PM Michael Van Canneyt via lazarus <

Does it mean that LCL should let go all the native targets and become purely web-based?
Obviously from the backwards compatibility perspective it's an unlikely option.

thanks,
Dmitry
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.lazarus-ide.org/pipermail/lazarus/attachments/20191125/5e49bfe7/attachment.html>

No, of course not. It "just" means implementing a web widgetset.

Obviously from the backwards compatibility perspective it's an unlikely option.

Nono, I'm not entirely suicidal ;-)

Michael.

On Mon, Nov 25, 2019 at 9:55 AM Michael Van Canneyt via lazarus <

So the ultimate goal sounds like:
* we need to implement WinAPI on the web-browser
* Lazarus project structure needs to have means to differentiate the code between server and client-side?

Wasn't there an attempt to start "web" widgetset before? or was is just limited to conversion of LFM to HTML?!

thanks,
Dmitry
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.lazarus-ide.org/pipermail/lazarus/attachments/20191125/ee9333aa/attachment.html>

That seems like a totally wrong approach to me.

* Lazarus project structure needs to have means to differentiate the code between server and client-side?

No.
You would have an explicit server side project, explicit client-side project.

Michael.

Luca Olivetti wrote

I meant an internal network with an application specific server used by many clients.

And that is exactly how the other day we had 500+ IntelliJ IDEA developers in our company that couldn't run IntelliJ. The licensing server died for a couple of hours. I personally had such reliance on a single point of failure.

Stand-alone local apps without the reliance of any service on a network (LAN or WAN) is always my preference.

I've had the same argument for 15+ years about having offline help too. The help stays compatible with the version of software I have running, and if the internet goes down, I can still access the help.

Regards,
Graeme

Michael Van Canneyt wrote

In order to see the full potential of web components, the IDE needs to be web-enabled.

So you don't like the idea how React development is done? It runs some server in the background and has some "auto reload" feature. You can use *any* text editor to edit the javascript files. As soon as you save, the web browser auto-reloads and you see the result of your changes.

For example - see this video:

https://youtu.be/sBws8MSXN7A?t=1105

Regards,
Graeme

I second that. Our company would be lost if we have to use the Web. Please keep the IDE.

I know this. We have the same for pas2js, there is a demo for it.

But this is still not RAD. Developing a GUI with RAD is simply faster.

Michael.

El 25/11/19 a les 19:18, Graeme Geldenhuys via lazarus ha escrit:

Sure, but that's not a custom application

Stand-alone local apps without the reliance of any service on a network (LAN or WAN) is always my preference.

Since the application I'm thinking of needs to access the server anyway, even as it is now (a native executable) it would stop working if the server wasn't accessible.

Bye

Michael Van Canneyt wrote

I know this. We have the same for pas2js, there is a demo for it. But this is still not RAD. Developing a GUI with RAD is simply faster.

I need to watch some FPC videos and try some more demos. I'm clearly lagging behind on what FPC can do for the web these days. ;-)

Regards,
Graeme

Of course :-)
But my summer cottage case is a special one: sparesly populated area with difficult terrain, mostly granite islands with very little soil for digging.

At least 2, maybe 3 years ago I signed up for fiber access to my summer cottage in the Stockholm archipelago. Apparently they would get me connected within a year. Still no fiber...

But only yesterday I received an email from the company stating that they were now working on the fiber poroject on these islands. Apparently they think they can connect us within 2 years or so....

At home (a suburb of Stockholm) I have 250/100 fiber since 2013. That makes it even more of a drag to be subjected to the mobile broadband data speeds. When it is good at the island (spring/autumn) one can get maybe 20/5 Mbit/s but during summer vacations when the population multiplies many times over it drops to sub-Mbit/s very often.
Too much on-line video usage, I think.

On coastal islands here in Maine, USA, some islands have chosen to simply lay the fiber cables on the ground rather than bury them or place them on poles as long as the run does not cross roads or other potentially damaging obstacles. Seems to be working well.

Good luck getting faster service!

Doug C.

---- On Tue, 26 Nov 2019 15:38:09 -0500 Bo Berglund via lazarus wrote ----

Florian Klämpfl wrote

May I quote you in discussions :)))? Here in Germany, Sweden is always taken as an example where even the smallest cottage has internet by fiber.

Of course :-)
But my summer cottage case is a special one: sparesly populated area with difficult terrain, mostly granite islands with very little soil for digging.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.lazarus-ide.org/pipermail/lazarus/attachments/20191126/534d607d/attachment.html>

Bo Berglund wrote

one can get maybe 20/5 Mbit/s but during summer vacations when the population multiplies many times over it drops to sub-Mbit/s very often. Too much on-line video usage, I think.

LOL - 7 years ago when I still lived in South Africa... "super broadband" was considered 5-10/0.5 MBps, but in reality you only got around 2-3/0.25 MBps. The most popular (affordable) broadband was still 512/256 KBps! Fibre didn't exist back then, and is probably not affordable now (if it exist).

So imagine my delight when I arrived in the UK and order fibre to the home with 200MBps speeds, and was really affordable. :-) I now have 250/30 (the most we can get in our area) and still smiling all the way.

The UK is still lagging behind many other countries for upload speeds [as far as I know], but hopefully we will get there some day. First we got to sort out that little thorn in the side called Brexit. ;-)

Regards,
Graeme

IMHO, in the end it should be possible to do an application in an RAD-way (if desired), test it on a desktop (using the desktop Widgets for its GUI), scale it (by defining parts of the procedures as "Remote"), and finally (just by re-compiling) have it run as a combination of application-parts running as WEBASM in the browser (and used the browser for its GUI) and application-parts running on the Server as fully compiled native code. The infrastructure would need to automatically provide the communication means (shared objects, remote procedure calls, ...) via Websockts. -Michael