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So glad to see this on the front page! I'm no expert, and Pascal is kind of a weird language by modern standards, but Lazarus does cross-platform desktop devel

by tomc1985 4y ago

So glad to see this on the front page! I'm no expert, and Pascal is kind of a weird language by modern standards, but Lazarus does cross-platform desktop development using GTK or QT bindings. Electron Devs Hate This App! (ok, maybe not really, but I wish they did!) PeaZip is written in Lazarus (check out https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php?topic=52417.0 https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php?topic=52417.0), and I've seen a few other odds and ends around the net mention the IDE in passing. Personally I like that it gets and stays out of my way. The UI design copies Visual Basic almost to a T and is a little dated by today's standards, but all the important bits are there.

webmobdev 4y ago
> Lazarus does cross-platform desktop development using GTK or QT bindings Not just GTK (mostly for Linux) or QT (for any) but Win32 (for Windows) and Carbon / Cocoa (for macOS) - so it can produce native GUI. This means smaller codebase and much better user experience.
andrewshadura 4y ago
If it copies anything, it’s first of all Delphi, around the version 7 :)
- nobleach 4y ago
  And 7 was just "let's try and add some 'web' to Delphi 6". And 6 was "Hey, Kylix is gonna be huge on Linux, so let's try and align Delphi 5"... Still one of my favorite programming experiences in my life.
- tomc1985 4y ago
  Having never used Delphi, the parallels to VB were uncanny. So I guess Delphi copied VB
  - FpUser 4y ago
    LOL. Delphi ran circle around VB. It could do what VB did but way better and could also do what MS C++ did. Obviously as you admit you have no real knowledge of the subject.
    - tomc1985 4y ago
      Wow, could you be any more haughty? I'm referring specifically to the UI. Yes I never worked with Delphi so I am indeed quite ignorant to its obviously apparent wonder.
      - FpUser 4y ago
        Delphi's precursors were Pascal as a language and ObjectVision as the concept of the UI (released in 1991). Both products created by Borland. It did not need VB to "copy from". Borland tools of the time were superior to MS and drove Gates nuts.
- FpUser 4y ago
  It is way, way more than Delphi 7. I've managed to easily port good sized modern Delphi project to run on Raspberry Pi using Lazarus.
FpUser 4y ago
>"Pascal is kind of a weird language" Pascal in Delphi / Lazarus in its current form is a full featured language that implements large amount of common concepts expected from a modern language. I do not see anything weird in it.
- tomc1985 4y ago
  My career took me to C-like languages and scripting environments like Ruby or Python. And (love it or hate it) most of the world thinks in JS nowadays. Some aspects of Pascal are really strange or awkward to me, like the rules for whether or not a statement in an `if` block needs to be surrounded by `begin`/`end`, or where the semicolons go in a particularly complicated, nested instance of said `if`. But I am not a master Pascal programmer by any means. You sound like an expert.
  - Qem 4y ago
    Oddly I can't remember any wirthian scripting language, like Ruby or Python. Was Wirth biased against dynamic languages?
    - webmobdev 4y ago
      I don't think so - his focus was always on making compilation fast and the language simpler and easier. See Oberon (the latest language he created) - it's probably even simpler than Ruby or Python.
  - FpUser 4y ago
    >"most of the world thinks in JS nowadays" I think in terms of fair amount of languages (including JS) so I do not get hung up on any particular one. My business is product development from scratch. I do it for clients or my own company. Because of that I could not care less about what "most of the world" prefers. I use what I think is most suitable given constraints for each particular project.
- twangist 4y ago
  Pascal might not be weird but it is unpleasant. It has many inconveniences to offer the modern programmer. In its day, in comparison to C -- by programmers for programmers -- Pascal was derided by one computer scientist as "a police-state language" for its many strictures and missing affordances.
istoica 4y ago
Highly invested in Electron, but I love Lazarus. I find it unmatched in what means developing cross-platform native apps, I only wish more people would know about it and use it, popularize, make noise, contribute. The maintainers are absolutely awesome guys, the helpful and kind type.

webmobdev 4y ago

> Lazarus does cross-platform desktop development using GTK or QT bindings Not just GTK (mostly for Linux) or QT (for any) but Win32 (for Windows) and Carbon / Cocoa (for macOS) - so it can produce native GUI. This means smaller codebase and much better user experience.

andrewshadura 4y ago

If it copies anything, it’s first of all Delphi, around the version 7 :)

nobleach 4y ago
And 7 was just "let's try and add some 'web' to Delphi 6". And 6 was "Hey, Kylix is gonna be huge on Linux, so let's try and align Delphi 5"... Still one of my favorite programming experiences in my life.
tomc1985 4y ago
Having never used Delphi, the parallels to VB were uncanny. So I guess Delphi copied VB
- FpUser 4y ago
  LOL. Delphi ran circle around VB. It could do what VB did but way better and could also do what MS C++ did. Obviously as you admit you have no real knowledge of the subject.
  - tomc1985 4y ago
    Wow, could you be any more haughty? I'm referring specifically to the UI. Yes I never worked with Delphi so I am indeed quite ignorant to its obviously apparent wonder.
    - FpUser 4y ago
      Delphi's precursors were Pascal as a language and ObjectVision as the concept of the UI (released in 1991). Both products created by Borland. It did not need VB to "copy from". Borland tools of the time were superior to MS and drove Gates nuts.
FpUser 4y ago
It is way, way more than Delphi 7. I've managed to easily port good sized modern Delphi project to run on Raspberry Pi using Lazarus.

FpUser 4y ago

>"Pascal is kind of a weird language" Pascal in Delphi / Lazarus in its current form is a full featured language that implements large amount of common concepts expected from a modern language. I do not see anything weird in it.

tomc1985 4y ago
My career took me to C-like languages and scripting environments like Ruby or Python. And (love it or hate it) most of the world thinks in JS nowadays. Some aspects of Pascal are really strange or awkward to me, like the rules for whether or not a statement in an `if` block needs to be surrounded by `begin`/`end`, or where the semicolons go in a particularly complicated, nested instance of said `if`. But I am not a master Pascal programmer by any means. You sound like an expert.
- Qem 4y ago
  Oddly I can't remember any wirthian scripting language, like Ruby or Python. Was Wirth biased against dynamic languages?
  - webmobdev 4y ago
    I don't think so - his focus was always on making compilation fast and the language simpler and easier. See Oberon (the latest language he created) - it's probably even simpler than Ruby or Python.
- FpUser 4y ago
  >"most of the world thinks in JS nowadays" I think in terms of fair amount of languages (including JS) so I do not get hung up on any particular one. My business is product development from scratch. I do it for clients or my own company. Because of that I could not care less about what "most of the world" prefers. I use what I think is most suitable given constraints for each particular project.
twangist 4y ago
Pascal might not be weird but it is unpleasant. It has many inconveniences to offer the modern programmer. In its day, in comparison to C -- by programmers for programmers -- Pascal was derided by one computer scientist as "a police-state language" for its many strictures and missing affordances.

istoica 4y ago

Highly invested in Electron, but I love Lazarus. I find it unmatched in what means developing cross-platform native apps, I only wish more people would know about it and use it, popularize, make noise, contribute. The maintainers are absolutely awesome guys, the helpful and kind type.