[fpc-pascal] Systems 2005: A first summary

[Tony Pelton]

On 10/29/05, Florian Klaempfl <F.Klaempfl at gmx.de> wrote:
> L505 wrote:
>
> >>
> >>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.

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

i think the GCC analogy is right.

>
> 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.

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