I started programing in Fortran on mainframe punch cards, then switched to TurboPascal in early '80s for the "microcomputer" revolution. I later switched to C and C++. Then started to look for cross-platform solutions, and used REALbasic (now Xojo) for over a decade. That started out as impressively easy to use, but was slow, buggy, and got increasingly expensive. So I began searching for another cross-platform solution. I looked into Java, Python, and a few other options, before settling on Free Pascal / Lazarus about 5 years ago. I've since re-coded and written 100,000s lines of code.
I love being able to code in Pascal again, readable code, easy to spot errors, strong typing, and Lazarus is a great IDE. Object Pascal, to my mind, is much clearer than C++ and as powerful. Plus my code is FAST! I install on 4 or 5 machines, Mac, Windows (XP, 7), and Ubuntu, the latter two in VirtualBox. Altogether, I suppose more than 50 installations of different versions of Lazarus. Windows installation is simple. After a bit of help here, Ubuntu installation usually works fine using dpkg. On Mac, dealing with XCode and gdb can be annoying, but it works if you follow the instructions. I'm nervous about Apple cutting carbon loose, but work on cocoa is progressing (and much appreciated!).
First impression: Amazing!
Cheers,
VTwin