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

[Marco van de Voort]

On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 01:18:09AM +0100, Skybuck Flying wrote:
> 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.

The whole point of FPC/Lazarus is not needing Delphi. Efforts should go
directly towards this goal.

Also, in general, the feasability and amount of work is heavily
underestimated. It is technically next to undoable, and magnitudes more difficult to
get it working then to do the same in lazarus.

In theory, all problems can be worked around, and heaps of developers have
stressed that. However none of them that tried came up with even halfworking
code, they all stumble on the complexity, magnitude of the task.

For starters, because you don't have Delphi in source.

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

Well, above lists another example, you have total system control. This gets
important if you have massive applications that you want to maintain
indefinitely.   The Kylix history clearly illustrates this. 
 
> Delphi's IDE is still more stable than Lazarus IDE.

Personally, debugging annoys me more than that. Delphi dies daily on me too.

> Delphi's compiler still works pretty good.

But to get it up to par with FPC, I have to buy the most recent one.

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

There were never supposed to be any.
 
> I would be interested in learning about any Lazarus/GUI Packages available 
> for Delphi ?!? If these already exist... please point me towards them ;)

It's not clear what you mean here. Several packages can be used both with
Lazarus and Delphi, like Indy.
 
> However currently I am interested in cross compiling to darwin/os x which 
> seems not included :( so that sux.

Because it is hard, and limited. Advanced topics need advanced skills.

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

This is not possible, some files needed for OS X crosscompilation are
copyrighted.

Still, the situation could be made easier. I hope that some of the people
that need it urgently start working on making that happen. (hint, hint)
 
> batch file and voila... everything gets compiled automatically without 
> having to follow a zillion tutorials and a zillion downloads and installs ;)

And I hope that some users will pull their own weight, and invest some time
too. The team already invests enough.
 
> I would also be interested in helping out with creating such a file disk 
> image... but then I still need more instructions...

People have succeeded crosscompiling to OS X by reading the buildfaq. Try
harder.
 
> 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 
> ! ;)

The library situation is complex and unfinished. Specially the portable
situation

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

No. This info is already in the .o, and can be read using various tools like
objdump. This causes only more trouble in calling the linker

(workarounds with renaming removed. Computers are easier confused than
users, so no point in that)