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Author Topic: What are we missing?  (Read 46552 times)

Greeniemax

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Re: What are we missing?
« Reply #30 on: October 19, 2017, 11:08:13 am »
Now in no way I'm a business kind of thinking person.

But what if we have a good repository system for Lazarus and FPC?

Something like what they have for Arduino or iPhone or Android.

So if someone needs a component or library that he/she needs to install and use, they wouldn't have to search Github or Google, they type it in the Repo Search, I think it'll be an attractive tool for many people.

I might be totally wrong but sure most of you guys are smart and don't need repo like tool but we have to attract new people to this community and everyone starts fresh, for that fresh guy to use Lazarus over other tools they need ease of use.

Can we arrange something like this?

JanRoza

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Re: What are we missing?
« Reply #31 on: October 19, 2017, 11:40:26 am »
 Isn't that exactly why Lazarus has Online Package Manager? One place from where you can find all packages.
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Greeniemax

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Re: What are we missing?
« Reply #32 on: October 19, 2017, 12:13:06 pm »
Yes that is true but it's not part of Lazarus, it's a package someone has to install.

If this is provided as a companion program that could be loaded from packages menu life for a beginner becomes easier.

Handoko

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Re: What are we missing?
« Reply #33 on: October 19, 2017, 12:45:11 pm »
Starting form Lazarus 1.8.0, Online Package Manager is part of Lazarus. I tested on Lazarus 1.8.0RC5, it is not enabled by default. You just need to open, compile and use/install it manually. For older version of Lazarus, it is a separate download.

Read more:
http://wiki.freepascal.org/Online_Package_Manager
« Last Edit: October 19, 2017, 12:50:49 pm by Handoko »

Greeniemax

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Re: What are we missing?
« Reply #34 on: October 20, 2017, 06:56:44 am »
I tried Lazarus 1.8RC, it works good, but same thing in 1.6.4 is pain to install, mismatching of libraries and functions keep complaining of return values etc.

For me and I’m okay with Pascal it was hard, this thing for a new guy would be horrible enough for him not to go with Lazarus, I think we have to make it more user friendly, I have downloaded the repo from GitHub I’ll try to do what I can.

Hoping for the best, I really want this tool to be used by new people, I’m planning to introduce Lazarus to colleges so people would know about the tool and ease of using it.

balazsszekely

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Re: What are we missing?
« Reply #35 on: October 20, 2017, 07:25:32 am »
Hi Greeniemax,

For the 1.6.x series download OPM for here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9Me_c5onmWobVZOdVlXSlZRRmc . Please note that Lazarus 1.6 is no longer supported same goes for OPM(1.6).
« Last Edit: October 20, 2017, 07:48:28 am by GetMem »

kupferstecher

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Re: What are we missing?
« Reply #36 on: October 20, 2017, 10:50:24 am »
About the documentation, I also think there is much to improve. When I started learning Freepascal/Lazarus I followed the "Getting started", which is quite short and for learning the Syntax I used Delphi-tutorials and references. For the language itself this was ok, but the struggle with LCL was huge. I nearly gave up several times. At that time I didn't know about the code examples. The LCL-doku was to cryptic for me as beginner. Delphi-doku sometimes helped, but there was a lot of trial and error. And somehow wasted time. Especially as I didn't understand how LCL is connected to the operating system, how the application actually works (message queue etc.).
While I say that, I'm aware that I should contribute such things as well and I understand why it is the way it is.

Another aspect, why Freepascal is not as popular as it should be, in my opinion is the syntax with its begin-end orgies. The modula syntax "if .. then .. end" is much nicer. In the beginning I thought: "From which century is this language - Middle Ages?". Today I don't care anymore, the additional writing effort is not significant. But I'm sure its a successful method to discourage interested people in choosing Freepascal. It just gives the overall (false) impression of an outdated language/environment. Loops and ifs occur every several lines so this "issue" is all along the source code.

mai

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Re: What are we missing?
« Reply #37 on: October 20, 2017, 11:21:50 am »
OPM works handsomely in 1.9 trunk checkout.

very nice !

Handoko

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Re: What are we missing?
« Reply #38 on: October 20, 2017, 01:36:16 pm »
Lazarus/FPC maybe is not as good as what we want but the good news is it is improving. Sadly, the pace is slow. It is a volunteer project, we need your helps.

Compare to the first time I used it 8 or 9 years ago, it's much better now. I think the most notable improvements recently are the Online Package Manager contributed by @GetMem and the ability to produce Android binaries (read more: http://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,33487.msg217112.html#msg217112).

The ability to produce Android apk files easily is one of the advantage of using Lazarus. The easiest way to do Android programming in Lazarus is to use LAMW contributed by @jmpessoa. The installation process is a bit technical but you should have no problem if you read and follow the documentation. The discussion about Lazarus Android Module Wizard can be found here:
http://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,21919.0.html

The biggest problem, which is a big no for newbies is the documentation. The documentation for FPC is pretty good but the documentation for Lazarus, LCL and other components are disorganized and contain lots of outdated information.

If you're good in English, you can help by improving the documentation. If your English is not good, like me, you can visit this forum and help the newbies just like what I'm doing if I have time.

If you found bugs, please submit the issue to the bug tracker forum. If you're not sure if that is a bug or not, you can start a discussion first before reporting the problem. Here is the Lazarus/FPC bug tracker forum:
https://bugs.freepascal.org/my_view_page.php

If you have idea for improving, you can submit your proposal to:
http://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/board,47.0.html

But remember, not all suggestions will be accepted especially when changing the syntax of the language. You can read more here:
http://wiki.freepascal.org/Modernised_Pascal

schuler

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Re: What are we missing?
« Reply #39 on: October 23, 2017, 07:07:48 am »
I've been thinking that each one of us developing open source with fpc/lazazrus should make videos showing what we are working on. As per example, I would love to watch longer videos about the Castle Game Engine and GLScene. I think that it would help publishing Free Pascal/Lazarus. Also remember seeing an engineering tool made in pascal - would love to watch someone explaining via a video on youtube.

I've just made my first video showing recent code:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGnfwpKUTIQ

:)  Wish everyone happy coding.  :)

Mr.Madguy

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Re: What are we missing?
« Reply #40 on: October 23, 2017, 10:10:56 am »
I personally miss full Delphi 2009 compatibility. You know, 2009 was almost 9 years ago. Enough time to implement full Unicode support, generics and anonymous routines. Also, I don't use it very often, but Asm debugger is also very weak in Lazarus in comparison with Delphi.
« Last Edit: October 23, 2017, 10:14:47 am by Mr.Madguy »
Is it healthy for project not to have regular stable releases?
Just for fun: Code::Blocks, GCC 13 and DOS - is it possible?

JuhaManninen

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Re: What are we missing?
« Reply #41 on: October 23, 2017, 11:21:14 am »
I personally miss full Delphi 2009 compatibility. You know, 2009 was almost 9 years ago. Enough time to implement full Unicode support, generics and anonymous routines. Also, I don't use it very often, but Asm debugger is also very weak in Lazarus in comparison with Delphi.
Lazarus provides full Unicode support. Maybe you have misunderstood it somehow. It is not 100% compatible with Delphi but with a little effort you write code that works 100% well in both systems in every situation.
Generics are in good shape in FPC trunk. Just use it.
Debugger experience is not perfect, true.
I can't say about anonymous routines. Never needed them.
Mostly Lazarus trunk and FPC 3.2 on Manjaro Linux 64-bit.

taazz

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Re: What are we missing?
« Reply #42 on: October 23, 2017, 12:35:34 pm »
I've been thinking that each one of us developing open source with fpc/lazazrus should make videos showing what we are working on. As per example, I would love to watch longer videos about the Castle Game Engine and GLScene. I think that it would help publishing Free Pascal/Lazarus. Also remember seeing an engineering tool made in pascal - would love to watch someone explaining via a video on youtube.

I've just made my first video showing recent code:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGnfwpKUTIQ

 :)  Wish everyone happy coding.  :)
Nice! That looks good. If you are intrested in feed back send me a message I might have a couple of thoughts.
Good judgement is the result of experience … Experience is the result of bad judgement.

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Laz: Lazarus 1.4.4 FPC 2.6.4 i386-win32-win32/win64

Mick

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Re: What are we missing?
« Reply #43 on: October 23, 2017, 01:26:59 pm »
...
Please note that Lazarus 1.6 is no longer supported same goes for OPM(1.6).

If the above info from @GetMem is true, then I think that there is something wrong with the approach for the Lazarus releases.
Does it mean that the latest officially released version of Lazarus (1.6.4) is no longer supported?
I don't get it.

JuhaManninen

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Re: What are we missing?
« Reply #44 on: October 23, 2017, 03:47:37 pm »
Does it mean that the latest officially released version of Lazarus (1.6.4) is no longer supported?
I don't get it.
Yes, that is what it means. There will be no 1.6.6 release. Bug fixes will not be merged to the fixes_1_6 branch. It is not maintained nor supported.
Ok, you get support from this forum but bug reports should be tested against 1.8 or trunk.
I recommend you forget 1.6.x and move to 1.8. It should have been released already but still waiting for FPC 3.0.4...
« Last Edit: October 23, 2017, 03:50:33 pm by JuhaManninen »
Mostly Lazarus trunk and FPC 3.2 on Manjaro Linux 64-bit.

 

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