[fpc-pascal] What to do to get new users

[Michael Van Canneyt]

On Wed, 16 Oct 2024, Nikolay Nikolov via fpc-pascal wrote:

>
> On 10/16/24 4:57 PM, Hairy Pixels via fpc-pascal wrote:
>> On Oct 16, 2024 at 8:50:21 PM, Ștefan-Iulian Alecu via fpc-pascal 
>> <fpc-pascal at lists.freepascal.org> wrote:
>>> 4. a proper VSCode extension (we can include Vim and Emacs there too,
>>> but the main focus is VSCode) with all the bells and whistles more
>>> established extensions have. I know we would all want to stick to
>>> Lazarus and we all know that VSCode is bloated, but we have to accept
>>> the reality that people do use it and it is really popular. Survive,
>>> adapt, overcome. :-) OmniPascal was a nice attempt, but it's dead and
>>> also closed source;
>>> 
>>> 6. an independent language server (no, cutting Lazarus' guts doesn't
>>> count, not until people can easily install precompiled versions) that
>>> can be used with the VSCode extension;
>> 
>> I have a language server I made and VSCode extension but it’s hard to use 
>> and buggy (mainly because CodeTools) but for other reasons that are my own 
>> fault. I never got the package working well enough to download binaries and 
>> run smoothly. Personally I use Sublime Text but I use VSCode for the 
>> debugger.
>
> I have some interest in implementing a language server client in the fp 
> console IDE, so I have some interest in helping with the language server as 
> well. However, I'm quite busy with other projects right now, so I don't know 
> when I'll have the time to work on that. Maybe in a few (6-12) months?

I'm a bit baffled. I'm using the VS Code plugin, it works OK.
It needs some configuration because Lazarus works fundamentally different
from VS Code, but when that is done, the plugin works fine.

Some more actions can be added, but the basic actions work fine.

> From my experience, the FPC community is lucky to have something as good and 
> stable as Lazarus. The IDE experience for Nim in VS Code sucks so much and 
> the only reason people tolerate it, is because, there's no alternative IDE 
> for Nim at all.

We may like or dislike VS Code, but young programmers are trained with VS Code.

It is the number 1 editor/IDE. These are the people to be seduced.

Lazarus breathes 1995. This is ok for me, and probably all old-timers here,
but for young developers, they look like they ended up in the middle ages of
computing.

Most will simply not do the effort to look beyond that. I had to work long 
on my colleagues to make them see that Lazarus has in fact better things on 
offer than Delphi and/or IntelliJ/VSCode.

At work, now they make available a default setup of Lazarus: 
It looks almost like VS code. With the latest additions, it is possible.

Without the possibility to get the VS code look and feel and feature list, 
they would not have made it available to all developers in the company.

So if you want young people to come to pascal, but present them with an IDE
that looks like a 1995 IDE, don't be surprised that they don't stay.

Michael.