[fpc-pascal] FreePascal/Lazarus plug-in's for Delphi.

[Skybuck Flying]

Hello,

To make it easy for Delphi programmers to write code in Delphi and then 
switch to free pascal/lazarus the following could be done:

1. Export code from Free Pascal into Delphi packages so they can be 
installed in Delphi.
2. Export code from Lazarus into Delphi packages so they can be installed in 
Delphi.

This way Delphi users can make applications inside the Delphi IDE, using 
libraries/code from Free Pascal and Lazarus.

For example some runtime libraries/routines and some Lazarus widgets/gui 
components.

Then later the user/code could be switched to free pascal/lazarus.

This means code-compatibility with Delphi *is* important, otherwise too many 
porting issue's.

This also means the user can get used to Lazarus and Free Pascal code inside 
the Delphi environment and get used to it first before actually switching to 
free pascal and lazarus ide... otherwise the switch to different tools, and 
different language and different runtimes/libraries is to great !?!?

Finally the big benefit of free pascal should be cross compiling... 
therefore FreePascal could come with as many cross compilers and cross 
linkers as possible, the same for Lazarus.

This is probably the biggest benefit of free pascal: cross compiling.

Otherwise I don't see any benefit to switching to free pascal.

Delphi's IDE is still more stable than Lazarus IDE.

Delphi's compiler still works pretty good.

Free Pascal compiler can do 64 bit but no performance benefits so far ?!

I would be interested in learning about any Lazarus/GUI Packages available 
for Delphi ?!? If these already exist... please point me towards them ;)

However currently I am interested in cross compiling to darwin/os x which 
seems not included :( so that sux.

Also I am willing to provide cpu-power for compiling. So if "the team" needs 
more cpu-power for compiling then I suggest the following:

Create a filedisk image containing all necessary tools and code and batch 
files or scripts to make the compiling automatic.

Then I or anybody else should be able to download the image, mount it, run a 
batch file and voila... everything gets compiled automatically without 
having to follow a zillion tutorials and a zillion downloads and installs ;)

I would also be interested in helping out with creating such a file disk 
image... but then I still need more instructions...

For example how to build the free pascal runtime library units... something 
like that. I am probably not the best candidate to do this because I 
understand very little about all these files which seem like a zillion files 
! ;)

Also when cross compiling to many different platforms then different binary 
files might have to be generated.

I am not sure but I think currently *.o is always the default extension... 
maybe this should be changed to something like:

o.mswindows32
o.mswindows64
o.osx32
o.osx64
o.dos16
o.dos32
o.linux32
o.linux64

etc.

And finally ofcourse the executables themselfes.

exe.mswindows32
exe.mswindows64
osx32  (in case no extension then just keep suffix)
osx64

For distributions the programmer could simply remove the extensions.

In case many extensions need to be removed then a little tool/command could 
be made which does it for the programmer for example:

"Prepare for Distribution"

This deletes all *.o and then copies *.o.target to *.o and *.exe.target to 
*.exe

So for example:

// first delete junk from previous distribution:
delete MyUnit.o
delete MyApplication.o

// make new distribution:
copy MyUnit.o.mswindows32 to MyUnit.o
copy MyApplication.exe.mswindows32 to MyApplication.exe

Bye,
  Skybuck.