[fpc-pascal] FPC and Lazarus as a main RAD tool?

[Sasa Zeman]

> Disadvantages of Delphi:
> 2. It's closed source, if it's buggy you're lost.

Main problems comes from RTL and VCL, not a compiler - it is
stable, at least for D7. As D7 Pro+ comes with RTL and VCL sources, it is
easy to fix and recompile both. And there is many excelent free and
OpenSource third-party components available.

D7 IDE however is only problematic for non-English users (regarding saving
it's own translations codes in .DFM when developing applications and using
executables on different localized machines).

> 6. Runs on machines with relatively low memory, compared to D7 (e.g.
> 256MB for development, 64MB on target here)

D7 run IDE under 128MB and work without resource problems with any project
complexity or number of added components.

> 7. Saves you a huge amount of licence costs.

Buying Delphi Studio 7 Pro was good investion so far. As the future is
unknown for now, serching alternative in FPC and Lazarus.

> 8. Has a mailing lists with a lot of funny people to talk to.
(As well taking banal insults...)

Even not directly provided personal support, Borland have excellent suppors
from newsgroups (Delphi users and TeamB people).