4 ms·

As an IDE, Freepascal does seem dated, not including many details that we've gotten used to in recent decades. The language itself feels also frozen in the ear

by brnt 6y ago

As an IDE, Freepascal does seem dated, not including many details that we've gotten used to in recent decades. The language itself feels also frozen in the early 00's, have a look at string handling for instance. Very verbose methods, and a problem that's true for the Freepascal dialect in general: small incompatibilities with Delphi Pascal, the dialect any old veteran will be used to and as such also much documentation/discussion online. Add to that a near invisibily in places like Github, and it does not make for a very attractive platform, compared to some others. Freepascal/Lazarus has a nice forum, and if you happen to be working in the same niches as other guests, that may be enough, but otherwise... I also couldn't help but notice that the practices passing around zipped code bases/fragments is alive and well on there, mirroring the culture of small but closed source tools the Delphi ecosystem was famous for around 2000. While friendly, very dated and 'source hidden' in its ways.

badsectoracula 6y ago
The textmode IDE is largely a fallback for platforms that Lazarus doesn't support yet, pretty much everyone nowadays uses Lazarus which is very featureful (and very fast, IMO it puts pretty much other IDE to shame considering the functionality it has and its responsiveness and resource requirements). Verbose methods are a convention that you'll find in other languages too (e.g. Java and C# and also some C++ projects). What is the issue with string handling? Free Pascal has several language modes, one of them being Delphi which should be compatible enough to share and port code between the the two compilers (though the default mode in Lazarus is ObjFPC which is different and IMO the better mode). In practice the differences are small enough that unless they refer to very internal stuff (e.g. memory layout of RTTI data), anything you find online about Delphi also applies to Free Pascal (assuming of course that FPC has implemented the functionality, but since you refer to old veterans, i think everything those veterans and old discussions will be there). I'm not sure what you mean with passing around zipped codebases, there are a ton of projects on GitHub. And how can a codebase be 'source hidden' when it is available as a zip?
- brnt 6y ago
  I did mean Lazarus. Just the text editor component feels alien. Things like block selection by default. It just doesn't work the same as any other text edit component I've ever used. The issue with string handling is (or was) that there seem to be different string types but that 'string' is used to describe all of them. Some of those methods require or produce ASCII, and it may be difficult to know what your problem is when you have one The language modes suffer from incomplete support. The differences aren't large,but that does mean they re easy to fix. My previous employer, a Delphi shop for more than 2 decades, was unable to be compatible with Freepascal over some of these issues. With limited source I mean that things like history will not be there, or its just a single file of part of a single file bundled up, so you're missing out on context. All makes it hard for a newbie, even for someone with some experience.
  - cmroanirgo 6y ago
    Agreed. Lazarus is one of the prime reasons that my journey back to Pascal stopped. To say it's dated is rather understated in my opinion. Step 1. A one window IDE please! (Even Gimp finally moved in that direction after years and years of pleading from the community).
    - clouddrover 6y ago
      > Step 1. A one window IDE please! Done. Here you go: https://www.getlazarus.org/ https://www.getlazarus.org/
      - int_19h 6y ago
        That link doesn't open.
    - badsectoracula 6y ago
      I prefer the multiwindow IDE myself, but you can make Lazarus single windowed. To do that go Packages -> Install/Uninstall Packages -> find the "anchordockingdsgn" package and install it (Lazarus is quite modular and packages can alter the IDE) by hitting the "Save and rebuild IDE" button. Note that this will have the form designer still as a floating window, if you want it to also be inside the IDE also install the "sparta_dockedformeditor". These aren't very obvious (in another comment i wrote that Lazarus can feel a bit messy and unpolished... this is one of the reasons i think that :-P) though and IMO it should be something that you get asked when you run Lazarus for the first time.
mrwebmaster 6y ago
I started to learn Delphi/Pascal yesterday and didn't like the IDEs either (I'm used to VIM keybinds, better autocompletions and automatic indentation). But VSCode has a plugin for Delphi/Pascal that seems to work fine for console programs. I guess that if you need to develop a GUI app you'll still need Lazarus/Embarcadero IDE for the visual frontend of the app.

by brnt 6y ago

badsectoracula 6y ago

The textmode IDE is largely a fallback for platforms that Lazarus doesn't support yet, pretty much everyone nowadays uses Lazarus which is very featureful (and very fast, IMO it puts pretty much other IDE to shame considering the functionality it has and its responsiveness and resource requirements). Verbose methods are a convention that you'll find in other languages too (e.g. Java and C# and also some C++ projects). What is the issue with string handling? Free Pascal has several language modes, one of them being Delphi which should be compatible enough to share and port code between the the two compilers (though the default mode in Lazarus is ObjFPC which is different and IMO the better mode). In practice the differences are small enough that unless they refer to very internal stuff (e.g. memory layout of RTTI data), anything you find online about Delphi also applies to Free Pascal (assuming of course that FPC has implemented the functionality, but since you refer to old veterans, i think everything those veterans and old discussions will be there). I'm not sure what you mean with passing around zipped codebases, there are a ton of projects on GitHub. And how can a codebase be 'source hidden' when it is available as a zip?

brnt 6y ago
I did mean Lazarus. Just the text editor component feels alien. Things like block selection by default. It just doesn't work the same as any other text edit component I've ever used. The issue with string handling is (or was) that there seem to be different string types but that 'string' is used to describe all of them. Some of those methods require or produce ASCII, and it may be difficult to know what your problem is when you have one The language modes suffer from incomplete support. The differences aren't large,but that does mean they re easy to fix. My previous employer, a Delphi shop for more than 2 decades, was unable to be compatible with Freepascal over some of these issues. With limited source I mean that things like history will not be there, or its just a single file of part of a single file bundled up, so you're missing out on context. All makes it hard for a newbie, even for someone with some experience.
- cmroanirgo 6y ago
  Agreed. Lazarus is one of the prime reasons that my journey back to Pascal stopped. To say it's dated is rather understated in my opinion. Step 1. A one window IDE please! (Even Gimp finally moved in that direction after years and years of pleading from the community).
  - clouddrover 6y ago
    > Step 1. A one window IDE please! Done. Here you go: https://www.getlazarus.org/ https://www.getlazarus.org/
    - int_19h 6y ago
      That link doesn't open.
  - badsectoracula 6y ago
    I prefer the multiwindow IDE myself, but you can make Lazarus single windowed. To do that go Packages -> Install/Uninstall Packages -> find the "anchordockingdsgn" package and install it (Lazarus is quite modular and packages can alter the IDE) by hitting the "Save and rebuild IDE" button. Note that this will have the form designer still as a floating window, if you want it to also be inside the IDE also install the "sparta_dockedformeditor". These aren't very obvious (in another comment i wrote that Lazarus can feel a bit messy and unpolished... this is one of the reasons i think that :-P) though and IMO it should be something that you get asked when you run Lazarus for the first time.

mrwebmaster 6y ago

I started to learn Delphi/Pascal yesterday and didn't like the IDEs either (I'm used to VIM keybinds, better autocompletions and automatic indentation). But VSCode has a plugin for Delphi/Pascal that seems to work fine for console programs. I guess that if you need to develop a GUI app you'll still need Lazarus/Embarcadero IDE for the visual frontend of the app.