[fpc-pascal] Migrate Delphi XE5 to FPC/Lazarus, any advice?

R0b0t1 r030t1 at gmail.com
Thu Jun 7 19:44:10 CEST 2018


On Wed, Jun 6, 2018 at 10:25 AM, Bo Berglund <bo.berglund at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have this big tomographic data interpretation and visualization
> program on my hands for maintenance. It was started back in 2002 by
> another developer using Delphi7 and the main development was done up
> until 2009 using D7, BDS2006 and RAD2007 by the same guy, who then
> left.
> Later on when I took over maintenance I unicodified it and updated the
> GUI using Delphi XE5 back in 2014-15. I also had to patch the GLScene
> code to make it work, not much but essential.
>
> Now in view of the way Embarcadero is licensing the development system
> I am thinking about moving over to FPC/Lazarus instead. New functions
> have been called for and the original developer is able to consult.
>
> So I am looking for advice on what to think about when doing this
> migration to FPC.
> The project uses an older version of GLScene, which cannot be replaced
> by any current version because of the way GLScene obsoleted methods
> and properties in the older versions such that I never could make it
> work back in 2014, hence the unicode patch of the older version.
> Apart from this it only uses standard functions in Delphi as far as I
> know. Plus our own components, which we have full control over...
>
> Suggestions, links etc appreciated!
>

Yours is a very interesting problem (so please keep the list updated
on it if you can), but one that Lazarus and FPC are  a very good fit
for. Most of the functionality that is hard to duplicate is found in
the newer versions of Delphi, such as libraries that rely on anonymous
functions and so on.

Have you attempted to port the code? People will probably be able to
help better if they are aware of specific problems you are having.

Can you explain the functionality now missing from GLScene that can't
be added back? You may need to maintain your own patches to that
component, but I fail to see how it would be impossible to bring
forward. This isn't to say bringing it forward will be trivial, but
even if it is not, getting your codebase compatible with Lazarus/FPC
is likely a good longer term goal.

Cheers,
     R0b0t1



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