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Author Topic: Do newbies get a good "1st time impression" of Lazarus ?  (Read 39089 times)

avra

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Re: Do newbies get a good "1st time impression" of Lazarus ?
« Reply #75 on: October 19, 2017, 09:18:49 am »
Many FPC versions in your $PATH however break things for sure.
Let's see if he is right by looking at how these things are done in industry standards GCC compiler:
https://gcc.gnu.org/faq.html#multiple
Oh, what a surprise! They do it in a similar way that is recommended for FPC. But we know better, we even have fpcupdeluxe that prepares everything for us so we do not have to deal with such details if we do not want to.

So, if I have multiple GCCs in path and I have problematic experience during various source compilations, should I go to GCC forum and tell them that they should fix it because I think it should work my way?
:P :-X :P
« Last Edit: October 19, 2017, 09:23:13 am by avra »
ct2laz - Conversion between Lazarus and CodeTyphon
bithelpers - Bit manipulation for standard types
pasettimino - Siemens S7 PLC lib

taazz

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Re: Do newbies get a good "1st time impression" of Lazarus ?
« Reply #76 on: October 19, 2017, 09:26:45 am »
So, if I have multiple GCCs in path and I have problematic experience during various source compilations, should I go to GCC forum and tell them that they should fix it because I think it should work my way?
No you should stop abusing my system with out permision and use your own config file. The path in my system is to be used by me you need permision to change it and even then you should ask permision once more just before changing in case I changed my mind. The path is THE biggest friction point so stop using it.
Good judgement is the result of experience … Experience is the result of bad judgement.

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JuhaManninen

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Re: Do newbies get a good "1st time impression" of Lazarus ?
« Reply #77 on: October 19, 2017, 09:35:51 am »
I got openSUSE Tumbleweed from work.
It installs 1000 updates every week! If that is not up-to-date, what could be?
But still no recent versions of FPC nor Lazarus...
The goal was to get the latest versions of them as easily as possible. It is a valid goal. Tumbleweed apparently does not fulfill that goal. From a FPC/Lazarus POV Tumbleweed combines the bad propertied of rolling and non-rolling distros.

Some other rolling distros have the latest versions of FPC and Lazarus. I think it is the easiest way to get them. External 3rd party packages for e.g. Debian derivatives always have their challenges and require more expertise. For example I know its package system somehow but still my Xubuntu got screwed after mixing 3rd party packages.

This is a major issue. Installing the latest FPC and Lazarus on Linux is a very frequently asked question, causing trouble to many people.
Hmmm ... maybe we should start a new thread about rolling distros.
« Last Edit: October 19, 2017, 10:06:35 am by JuhaManninen »
Mostly Lazarus trunk and FPC 3.2 on Manjaro Linux 64-bit.

mai

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Re: Do newbies get a good "1st time impression" of Lazarus ?
« Reply #78 on: October 19, 2017, 10:07:58 am »
Immediately after installing a secondary checkout, say "trunk", a recurring "unit not found" will ruin the whole experience right then and there.
Secondary checkout of what? FPC or Lazarus?
Many simultaneous Lazarus checkouts are OK when you keep them in separate directories, and maybe use --pcp= config path as needed.
Many FPC versions in your $PATH however break things for sure. Why would you do such thing? It is obviously a bad idea. Was it the fundamental reason for your problems?

The wiki page you updated should be very accurate. Please make sure the advice given is correct.


I did not manually do that of course. install and purge is controlled by a Ubuntu package. To avoid multiple fpc in $PATH was not too obvious to the packagers, it appears.

I am fairly certain I ran into this preset trap like 15 times or so. apt, fcpUP, and the Laz Makefile need to harmonize to avoid that situation.

since all problems disappeared the second that the superfluous fpc was moved away, it has got to be the root cause of the "unit not found" failure. I don't see a problem with the wiki page.

 

JuhaManninen

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Re: Do newbies get a good "1st time impression" of Lazarus ?
« Reply #79 on: October 19, 2017, 11:16:18 am »
I am fairly certain I ran into this preset trap like 15 times or so. apt, fcpUP, and the Laz Makefile need to harmonize to avoid that situation.
You must have done something unusual.
Lazarus Makefile does not put FPC into your path. It only builds Lazarus using an existing FPC.
fcpUP does not put FPC into your path either. It works in a "sandbox".
Mostly Lazarus trunk and FPC 3.2 on Manjaro Linux 64-bit.

Raul_ES

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Re: Do newbies get a good "1st time impression" of Lazarus ?
« Reply #80 on: October 24, 2017, 10:44:55 pm »
My first impression of Lazarus was simply amazing. It fullfilled my dreams and covered my beginner's expectations. I tried many years ago Borland's Kylix (no Delphi experience here) ... but now I have recovered the passion for pascal language thanks to Lazarus. Lazarus makes it easy to develop programs visually and the multiplatform capabilities are delicious. It's a great project. I had no trouble installing it under Windows or Linux or BSD. The problem was Solaris.

But then, I started to require more components: barcodes, pdf management, etc... and I currently stopped using Lazarus in favour of another project with, in my humble opinion, more interesting options for a complete beginner like me (i.e: multiplatform installer distribution in a single zip file). Now I'm able to use free pascal under any of my development platforms.

Just my vision as the newbie I am. Lazarus is a giant cooperative project with a great future ahead.

cheers
Pharmacy + Chemistry + Biology + Healthcare + Computing

If you have any interest or project related with these areas feel free to contact me!

willbprog9933

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Re: Do newbies get a good "1st time impression" of Lazarus ?
« Reply #81 on: November 02, 2017, 06:50:26 am »
This is my first post on these forums.  Hello everyone!  :)

I tried Lazarus a few years ago on Debian and maybe also Ubuntu.  At that time it did not work for me.  I think there were dependency problems and since I was merely curious, I didn't go further.

A few days ago I again tried Lazarus on both PCLinuxOS and AntiX (based on Debian Testing) and Lazarus works great!  Over the years I've used Qt Creator, CodeBlocks, Visual Studio, (tried) Gambas and a few others and I was really blown away by how easy and complete Lazarus is!  The only wish I have for Lazarus is an option to make it all work in one window (a la Gimp's 'single window mode').

mai, I think you already had made up your mind when starting this thread.  You seem to have your gun drawn and sword unsheathed before really understanding what Lazarus is about.  You act like you paid a lot of money for Lazarus and you want to make everyone know how unhappy you are.  I think if you settle down, clean the slate and do a fresh install of Lazarus on a known good Linux system, it might actually work for you.  Why not do a fresh install in VirtualBox of Debian and then install Lazarus from the repos and see how it goes?

To the folks who work on Lazarus, FPC and the forums -- THANK YOU! :D
macOS, Linux, FreeBSD and sometimes OpenIndiana.

Blessed, loved and forgiven! :D

balazsszekely

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Re: Do newbies get a good "1st time impression" of Lazarus ?
« Reply #82 on: November 02, 2017, 07:00:25 am »
Hi willbprog9933,

Welcome to the forum!

Quote
A few days ago I again tried Lazarus on both PCLinuxOS and AntiX (based on Debian Testing) and Lazarus works great!  Over the years I've used Qt Creator, CodeBlocks, Visual Studio, (tried) Gambas and a few others and I was really blown away by how easy and complete Lazarus is!
I hope the haters see this.   :)

Quote
The only wish I have for Lazarus is an option to make it all work in one window (a la Gimp's 'single window mode').
Please go to Lazarus Menu --> Packages --> Install/Unistall packages, then search for anchordockingdsgn 0.5 and sparta_dockedformeditor 0.0. Install both packages then rebuild IDE.

Quote
mai, I think you already had made up your mind when starting this thread.
Actually @mai has changed his mind, now is a big lazarus fan.
« Last Edit: November 02, 2017, 07:06:56 am by GetMem »

jmpessoa

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Re: Do newbies get a good "1st time impression" of Lazarus ?
« Reply #83 on: November 02, 2017, 07:02:43 am »

Quote
The only wish I have for Lazarus is an option to make it all work in one window....

You can try, too:

https://github.com/FlKo/LazarusDockedDesktops
Lamw: Lazarus Android Module Wizard
https://github.com/jmpessoa/lazandroidmodulewizard

marcov

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Re: Do newbies get a good "1st time impression" of Lazarus ?
« Reply #84 on: November 02, 2017, 11:47:59 am »
Immediately after installing a secondary checkout, say "trunk", a recurring "unit not found" will ruin the whole experience right then and there.

Rename all but one  and use -V

VTwin

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Re: Do newbies get a good "1st time impression" of Lazarus ?
« Reply #85 on: November 18, 2017, 04:53:38 pm »
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
« Last Edit: November 18, 2017, 04:56:27 pm by VTwin »
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munair

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Re: Do newbies get a good "1st time impression" of Lazarus ?
« Reply #86 on: November 18, 2017, 09:13:56 pm »
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.
I have close to the same experience with REALbasic. More than once I read reviews stating that it's rediculously easy to write a program. In the early days it was indeed pretty buggy, but I still have RB2011r4 on Linux quite stable, although I hardly use it anymore, mostly because it compiles against GTK2. I never tried Xojo, but it seems that especially on Linux the IDE has become very slow and not at all responsive. Some menus literally take over 5 seconds to open! Certainly not something to recommend. However, the concept of the RB IDE wasn't bad at all.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2017, 09:15:40 pm by Munair »
keep it simple

lainz

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Re: Do newbies get a good "1st time impression" of Lazarus ?
« Reply #87 on: November 18, 2017, 09:36:05 pm »
Quote
Do newbies get a good "1st time impression" of Lazarus ?

Depending what is a newbie for you, is anyone that is starting programming or a senior developer that never used lazarus? Also that person did only command line applications or he/she only coded UI's with something else?

The impression is only about lazarus or Pascal also? What programs he/she used previously?
« Last Edit: November 18, 2017, 09:42:47 pm by lainz »

mw108

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Re: Do newbies get a good "1st time impression" of Lazarus ?
« Reply #88 on: July 10, 2018, 08:14:32 pm »
First time I used Lazarus was when Kylix was still a thing. Both were incredibly buggy back then in SuSE.

Then I went full Delphi and Windows for the last 20 years.

Gave Lazarus another try some days ago, because I was interested in a Neural Network project written in FPC / Lazarus.

Installed FPC and Lazarus under Windows 10.

Well, figured that Lazarus is still extremely buggy and unstable. Debugger crashing very often, IDE throwing SEGFAULT errors when switching code tabs. Can't switch between form and code, even though the project clearly has forms, etc.

Not pleased.

silvestre

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Re: Do newbies get a good "1st time impression" of Lazarus ?
« Reply #89 on: July 10, 2018, 08:47:18 pm »
Dear mw108, You would be more than helpful to the community if you were more specific and clear in describing the concrete errors. There are a lot of people here who work openly to offer constructive solutions...If you detail the bugs more precisely, in addition to the exact version you use (maybe someone can reproduce the bugs and create a path to your solution).

Well, figured that Lazarus is still extremely buggy and unstable. Debugger crashing very often, IDE throwing SEGFAULT errors when switching code tabs. Can't switch between form and code, even though the project clearly has forms, etc.

Not pleased.

 

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