[fpc-devel] Extend the libraries people!

[L505]

Some of the incompatibilities first need to be brought about through experimentation.
So start figuring out what -specific- delphi units that you actually need to get
working now. If you have a specific unit or source code that needs to be
working -today-, then at least you can submit the exact incompatibility issue to the
mailing list or wherever.

I see that it would be nice to have all delphi code compile in FPC (then
maybe Borland might sadly go out of business and we all might be eating free food soon
too).. but there are other alternatives in the mean time, which may take less
resources too.

Such as getting KOL working, which is a complete GUI toolkit for windows! I thought it
would take me longer to get this working today.

Well I've just got a KOL application working with FPC 2.0.0.

Since Vladimir offers us pure Pascal $define or an assembly $define, I turned
$define pascal on and got a simple KOL app working after about 1 hour of commenting
out date/time functions and changing a few things.

I will submit a crumby KOL hello world zip asap. (next goal is to try an MCK app
working, and a linux app working, but I"m not sure how far linux is supported with
kol)

Listen, 26KB for complete a hello world windows GUI program is not bad at all.
Where I see a big problem is lazarus not offering small EXE sizes.. since a lot of
people do judge an exe by it's size.
(not so much worry in GnuLinux... I don't mind shipping a 1MB linux app...since most
Linux apps are usually KDE Python bloatware anyway)
So until the LCL is smartlinked better or placed into a library file, I think if KOL
was avail in the mean time as a temporary solution.. this would solve a lot of
problems temporarily... in a quick and dirty manner (took me only 1 hour to get KOL
working today...whereas LCL linked smart may take us a year).

Maybe we'll get around to making IDE for KOL/freepascal, or Lazarus could be hacked to
use KOL as an option. People might be able to cheat in the mean time by building their
KOL/MCK applications
inside delphi, then compiling with freepascal (since KOL does not use DFM files,
rather pure "on the fly" component creation code just hidden inside include files).

Lars



| > | Why not both? Delphi is windows-only, so even if FPC became 100%
| > | compatible with D7, the libraries already available for Delphi are
| > | usually windows specific, and FPC libraries are cross-platform.
| >
| > And we all know they are already doing just that. What is needed is more help,
action,
| > and contribution.
| >
| > In fact many libraries out there already are working with FPC. We just haven't
done
| > anything about them (i.e. submitted them). It's the man work. We can talk all we
want
| > but when it comes time to code...
|
| Indeed :)
|
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