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Author Topic: Mobile development - Android & iOS  (Read 38021 times)

MarkMLl

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Re: Mobile development - Android & iOS
« Reply #15 on: December 05, 2021, 09:35:05 am »
I am seeking here for some oversight (supervision) in my efforts to find an oversight (omission to glean from the provided info). Could you help?

Noting that there are a number of people in this forum who use Google (or other) machine translation, I thought the homonym worth pointing out. I'd suggest that your quote above would be better put as

"I am seeking some guidance here in my effort to find an omission."

Oversight, as in  "executive summary", would until recently have been "overview". Or for that matter "summary" or possibly "abstract" although that can be another problematic word (you can either present an abstract, or abstract from a more detailed presentation).

Oversight, as in "supervision" is a neologism derived from "overseer", which I think is used in a couple of places in traditional Bible translations and was more recently common in certain exploitative colonial situations.

Oversight, as in "unintentional omission", is well-established.

Or at least, that's my position from a few score years as a British-English speaker :-)

MarkMLl
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Pet hate: people who boast about the size and sophistication of their computer.
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Blade

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Re: Mobile development - Android & iOS
« Reply #16 on: December 07, 2021, 11:39:43 pm »
Maybe, but that will only change if people volunteer. Answer questions, document, supply patches....

Obviously there are already existing people, who supplied what is already there. Not sure if they are all still active and the Android stuff, or if they all read the forum. Maybe some of them are on the mail list. Maybe some are temporarily or permanently busy with other things. Again, all volunteers. Each decide for themself, when and how much...

...All that may be true. But it is also chicken and egg...

Without advertising what is there, no one will come, and no new volunteers. And without volunteers, it will not progress or maybe just ever so slowly.

But yes, if some wikipage promises to much, then it should be thought to be corrected.
Find out if the author of that page is still active. Leave a note on the wiki's talk page, ask here on the forum, and also ask on the maillist(s). If they are still there, speak to them.

I agree with with most of your post.  Another thing that I learned is that sometimes developers don't realize that people are interested in their project because they aren't getting enough feedback.  I have experienced several such situations with volunteer developers.  Sometimes it can be good for users to let them know that their efforts are appreciated.  Even if the user isn't advanced or a developer, maybe there are various other little things they can do to help.

Blade

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Re: Mobile development - Android & iOS
« Reply #17 on: December 07, 2021, 11:53:58 pm »
A proper Lazarus integration, such that it is compatible with other platforms in the "write once compile anywhere" principle would require a custom android widgetset. There was the effort on making the "custom drawn" widgetset available for android: https://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Custom_Drawn_Interface/Android

The custom drawn widgetset is from the idea pretty similar to Firemonkey, i.e. on how delphi supports cross compatibility.  I don't know if this was continued and if so what the current state is.

I was quite surprised in my recent research that a lot more programming languages than I thought have taken the custom drawn route for Android and iOS mobile apps.  And this approach has worked quite well for them.  This includes even Google, with some of their other lesser known pet languages.  This is to perhaps put more emphasis that we shouldn't take Delphi's implementation issues with FireMonkey as the usual case.  But to be fair, they are improving with each version.  It appears other programming languages have done similar, but done it right.

There is LCL-CustomDrawn-Android and LCL-CustomDrawn-Cocoa (among others), but not sure what is going on or the story with LCL-CustomDrawn-iPhone.
« Last Edit: December 08, 2021, 04:13:43 am by Blade »

Warfley

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Re: Mobile development - Android & iOS
« Reply #18 on: December 08, 2021, 12:10:59 pm »
The thing is, creating a native look and feel is actually quite hard, requires a lot of time and effort. Oracles JavaFX, one of biggest custom drawn interface library out there, does not have this to this day. The main problem is, as soon as the underlying OS is updated, you need to update your skins for that version.
Especially on android you have the problem that different manufacturers (like Samsung) provide their own styles to their android versions, that look different to vanilla android.
Maintaining such a thing takes a lot of time and effort. This is basically the whole buisness model of frameworks like QT

IMHO when doing custom drawn, there is only one way to do it right, if you don't have the resources to make and maintain the native look and feel (which tbh I don't think Lazarus has), don't focus on making it look native, but on making it easiely customizable. JavaFX for example simply lets you style your components with CSS, making it very easy to create new styles, take existing styles from other domains (e.g. the web) and sharing your styles with others. Firemonkey on the other hand made styling really complicated with their own language, no one knew before, and also very limited online resources.

The quality of experience for the user is a function of expectations and performance. If you make your app look as native as possible, the expectations are for it to behave as native, so any deviations from that will impact the quality of experience.
By making the app look different to the native appearance, the user will also not expect the native behavior (at least not to the degree as if it looks like it is native).

MarkMLl

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Re: Mobile development - Android & iOS
« Reply #19 on: December 08, 2021, 12:45:00 pm »
The thing is, creating a native look and feel is actually quite hard, requires a lot of time and effort.

And the Lazarus/LCL project has enough problems trying to get to grips with things like gtk3.

There are some who would argue that Android and iOS are so overwhelmingly important that desktop OSes will shortly be eclipsed. I'm not one of them.

There are others who would argue that the important thing is being able to implement apps based on an HTML/CSS GUI which is an idea that's been around since Netscape proclaimed itself the Universal Desktop in about '95. I don't think I'm one of those either, but it's possibly a bit more defensible when you take QML into account... however I've encountered problems on more than one occasion when I've come up against a large-scale program comprising multiple (Python) sub-projects held together by the Electron or Uranium frameworks... with nobody able to say how the ensemble should be debugged.

One possibility would be to completely decouple the Android-specific part of the LCL into a separate project, but there's already enough of a problem with occasional issues with LAMW being interpreted as a weakness in the main Lazarus IDE.

In short, I don't have an answer other than suggesting that the people who complain about deficiencies in any particular LCL variant should be encouraged to engage with the development and maintenance projects... and I have very little expectation that that would be productive.

MarkMLl
MT+86 & Turbo Pascal v1 on CCP/M-86, multitasking with LAN & graphics in 128Kb.
Pet hate: people who boast about the size and sophistication of their computer.
GitHub repositories: https://github.com/MarkMLl?tab=repositories

Chronos

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Re: Mobile development - Android & iOS
« Reply #20 on: December 08, 2021, 03:00:40 pm »
The problem is that more people use mobile and tablets now than desktops. The desktops are more suitable for real work but still most of the people simply have their smartphone with themselves all the time. So inability to target that audience by Lazarus is pretty huge deficiency. Sure, not every development environment support all modes like desktop, mobile, web and console. But with Lazarus we have that expectation "Build once, compile anywhere" which is simply not true for entire mobile segment.
It would be nice to support native look & feel for Android and iOS, but at least it would be good to have LCL support for those platforms. It is not possible to encapsulate Android visual controls with standard LCL controls? As LCL supports OSX and Linux Gtk/Qt, than it should be possible to do that also for Android and iOS or even for HTML5 controls. There can be some limitations like as VCL/LCL old DPI dependent coordinate system. Delphi overcame that with FMX and also use of  TPointF. LCL would need to move in the same direction to better support those new platforms and widgetsets. That would introduce huge incompatibility with existing software. So for now, it would be nice if at least somebody implement widgetset for Android so we can simply compile our desktop applications and they would look at least like on desktop. Sure, even desktop application visual interface can be made more flexible to better work with touch screens and small screens in general.

So the question is, why Lazarus doesn't support Android yet. And will support it in near future? If it is mostly matter of work needed or there are other obstacles. Sure similar problem is with other widgetsets like Gtk3 and Gtk4. How much Android support would cost? Would be $10000 enough? :)

Blade

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Re: Mobile development - Android & iOS
« Reply #21 on: December 08, 2021, 03:13:03 pm »
And the Lazarus/LCL project has enough problems trying to get to grips with things like gtk3.

Qt5 and above, which do Android and iOS, are already embraced by Lazarus.  We are kind of talking core elements of why people love Lazarus and the LCL, "Write Once, Compile Anywhere".

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There are some who would argue that Android and iOS are so overwhelmingly important that desktop OSes will shortly be eclipsed. I'm not one of them.

I agree that desktop OSes will be with us for many years to come, particularly because many people want bigger screens and to a lesser extent more storage.  Many people will buy laptops or plug their desktop computer (which are increasingly small form factor) into their TV. 

Android could arguably replace Windows (check out https://www.android-x86.org/ and others) and to a lesser degree macOS, for the desktop.  A huge number of people already carry around Android phones and are very familiar with using them.  It's not that big of a leap for people to use Android laptops or plug their Android device up to/WiFi into/use the cloud for large external storage and also connect the Android to their flat screen TV. 

That Google hasn't made a stronger push to bring this about (Android on the desktop/laptop), has arguably to do with them fumbling around with the Chrome OS and Chromebooks (as if they don't already have access to enough personal information).  Android is open-source, and a very short jump to the Linux world  :o.  Where with Chrome OS, that's totally under Google's control.  But, Google may at some point change direction.

Many people are indicating that Apple appears to be merging iOS with macOS, or will outright replace macOS with iOS at some point not too far away.  More and more macOS features keep getting added to iOS.

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There are others who would argue that the important thing is being able to implement apps based on an HTML/CSS GUI which is an idea that's been around since Netscape proclaimed itself the Universal Desktop in about '95. I don't think I'm one of those either...

Oh, we agree on this point.  :)

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One possibility would be to completely decouple the Android-specific part of the LCL into a separate project, but there's already enough of a problem with occasional issues with LAMW being interpreted as a weakness in the main Lazarus IDE.

That would be a terrible thing to do.  Lazarus and the LCL has embraced Android for many years already, with many people already have built and are maintaining Android apps.  We are really just talking about the other side of the mobile equation, more strongly embrace iOS too or that there would be an equivalent project like Laz4Android, thus Laz4iOS.

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In short, I don't have an answer other than suggesting that the people who complain about deficiencies in any particular LCL variant should be encouraged to engage with the development and maintenance projects... and I have very little expectation that that would be productive.

Not everyone can be a developer.  Usually, you are talking people who are exceptional and/or very experienced, that will walk that path.  Most people aren't professional programmers, and a lot of people only engage in programming as a hobby.  Climbing the ranks to become an advanced enough programmer, in addition to time and interest, is not the easiest thing for everyone.  So, it might be a matter of trying to more actively find or encourage those with the needed abilities and interest.
« Last Edit: December 08, 2021, 03:41:26 pm by Blade »

Blade

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Re: Mobile development - Android & iOS
« Reply #22 on: December 08, 2021, 03:24:57 pm »
What I was wondering, as QT5 supports Mobile, wouldn't it be possible to use the already existing widgetset for mobile. But I am simply not knowledgable enough about QT and the corresponding widgetsets for that matter

To add to this point, at least Qt 5.6.2 is supported (https://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Qt5_Interface).  But there is no clear indication of such a more direct possibility, using the Qt5 WidgetType/WidgetSet and then cross compiling. 

This seems to have been a fuzzy matter for quite a long time, as indications are maybe most Free Pascal/Lazarus users are Windows or Linux desktop users, and then Android owners or ignore mobile development.  Mac and iPhone owners would be in the better position to gauge this for iOS.  With Android, there is already LAMW, so this obscures going into other directions.  But, clearly Android applications can be built in a couple of different ways by Free Pascal/Lazarus.

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The thing is, creating a native look and feel is actually quite hard, requires a lot of time and effort. Oracles JavaFX, one of biggest custom drawn interface library out there, does not have this to this day. The main problem is, as soon as the underlying OS is updated, you need to update your skins for that version.
Especially on android you have the problem that different manufacturers (like Samsung) provide their own styles to their android versions, that look different to vanilla android.
Maintaining such a thing takes a lot of time and effort. This is basically the whole buisness model of frameworks like QT

But that is the thing, Lazarus is already using Qt/Qt5.  So then if Qt5 and up does Android and iOS and Free Pascal can compile to the cpu used, then that debatably creates a greater expectation that Lazarus would more fully embrace mobile development.

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IMHO when doing custom drawn, there is only one way to do it right, if you don't have the resources to make and maintain the native look and feel (which tbh I don't think Lazarus has), don't focus on making it look native, but on making it easiely customizable.

I agree with your point about focusing on customizable.  There is a strong argument about whether mobile users always expect or demand a "native look".  There are many cases and exceptions, where applications that didn't have a native look were embraced and successful.  This could also depend a lot on the type of application that it is as well.  It arguably comes down to how well that it's done.

In addition, by Lazarus already having LCL-CustomDrawn-Android, it then also creates the expectation to see LCL-CustomDrawn-iPhone.  It could be said that it comes off a bit weird to somewhat embrace Android, but not iOS. 

MarkMLl

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Re: Mobile development - Android & iOS
« Reply #23 on: December 08, 2021, 03:31:09 pm »
How much Android support would cost? Would be $10000 enough? :)

Are you suggesting that somebody might be able to offer a decent bounty?

Because I think a commitment of that type would go a long way towards keeping the core developers enthusiastic, and their enthusiasm would go a long way towards demonstrating to everybody else (i.e. including the likes of me) that it was a platform worth taking seriously.

MarkMLl
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Pet hate: people who boast about the size and sophistication of their computer.
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Warfley

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Re: Mobile development - Android & iOS
« Reply #24 on: December 08, 2021, 03:36:29 pm »
There are some who would argue that Android and iOS are so overwhelmingly important that desktop OSes will shortly be eclipsed. I'm not one of them.
They already are, mobile makes up around 55% of the market share. There are a lot of people who have a mobile device but no desktop computer, or have a desktop but only use it for very specialized things (e.g. just for working). So just in raw numbers, mobile devices already eclipsed desktops.
But more importantly is what kind of apps you are developing. If you write server software, then you will probably never have to interface with mobile platforms. On the other hand, if you write a Chat, you can easiely skip Desktop but must target Mobile (e.g. WhatsApp the most widely used chat application is not available for Desktop)

The desktop will stay, but it will be increasingly niche, only for certain domains, mobile has already taken the reign in the daily usage of most people

There are others who would argue that the important thing is being able to implement apps based on an HTML/CSS GUI which is an idea that's been around since Netscape proclaimed itself the Universal Desktop in about '95. I don't think I'm one of those either, but it's possibly a bit more defensible when you take QML into account... however I've encountered problems on more than one occasion when I've come up against a large-scale program comprising multiple (Python) sub-projects held together by the Electron or Uranium frameworks... with nobody able to say how the ensemble should be debugged.
Well back in the 90s web development was not really prevalent, today JavaScript one of the most widely used programming platforms, making up between 10%-20% of the market share (depending on which statistic you go by). The reason for this is simple, all modern systems provide browsers, some systems even exclusively (e.g. many Smart TV OS only allow webapps). So web development is the easiest way to target as many platforms as possible.
Should you use it, well it depends, web technology is really good for creating interactive GUI applications. This is pretty much all it is designed for, but it lacks at other things, e.g. while since a few years nodejs and electron have threading support, it is not thread safe, and in browser you have no threading support at all, making it quite a pain to use multiple threads. JS is best suited for singe threaded applications. Also because all their apps are running in a sandbox, using system APIs is quite cumbersome and for browser applications even impossible, so if you require a lot of interactions with the environment, JS is also possible not a great solution.

Web applications can be a great solution, especially due to the massive existing infrastructure (frameworks, platforms, etc.) and the reason I brought it up is, because it is a very archivable mobile solution with relatively little effort.
« Last Edit: December 08, 2021, 03:38:26 pm by Warfley »

MarkMLl

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Re: Mobile development - Android & iOS
« Reply #25 on: December 08, 2021, 03:49:47 pm »
As a general point, I've found a tablet connected to a decent screen using HDMI and to a keyboard/mouse a fairly competent replacement for a PC. But when considered as a decoupled device I'm uncertain what a tablet or 'phone is used for: the impression I get is that it's almost always running a browser as a "terminal" to Facebook/Twitter/Google's "mainframes".

But, clearly Android applications can be built in a couple of different ways by Free Pascal/Lazarus.

...and I'd suggest that that's one of the problems: it's never been clear which of those ways should be preferred, and that's certainly contributed to my lack of practical engagement.

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There is a strong argument about whether mobile users always expect or demand a "native look".  There are many cases and exceptions, where applications that didn't have a native look were embraced and successful.  This could also depend a lot on the type of application that it is as well.  It arguably comes down to how well that it's done.

Following on from my earlier comment, I think it's telling that a very substantial proportion of the surviving Firefox addons are actually custom backgrounds etc. The majority of things that used to be handled by custom code are either now built into the browser, provided as a temporary download by a central server, or diligently blocked by remote services because their owners are worried about their business model (or, in a minority of cases, legal exposure).

Then if we look at things from a corporate POV, I think that the vast majority of companies which have embraced a "bring your own device" approach assume that their business systems will be accessed via a browser, irrespective of platform, and might actually be hostile to having unapproved software running on the same device.

At which point, even if the market penetration of Android and iOS continues to increase, I have reservations as to whether there will ever be a non-browser "killer app" for them.

MarkMLl
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Pet hate: people who boast about the size and sophistication of their computer.
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Warfley

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Re: Mobile development - Android & iOS
« Reply #26 on: December 08, 2021, 04:00:10 pm »
Android could arguably replace Windows (check out https://www.android-x86.org/ and others) and to a lesser degree macOS, for the desktop.  A huge number of people already carry around Android phones and are very familiar with using them.  It's not that big of a leap for people to use Android laptops or plug their Android device up to/WiFi into/use the cloud for large external storage and also connect the Android to their flat screen TV.
Nah, Windows is here to stay, it could be in some areas overtaken by Android, but in many domains there is no chance. One huge advatage of windows is that it is backwards compatible to the stone ages, so if you look for example into the critical infrastructure sector: Hospitals, Powerplants, etc. they are still using software from multiple decades ago and this is only possible because of Windows. Android is based on Linux, which is famous (well more the GLIBC rather than linux itself) to switch up abis to make it not backwards compatible.

That Google hasn't made a stronger push to bring this about (Android on the desktop/laptop), has arguably to do with them fumbling around with the Chrome OS and Chromebooks (as if they don't already have access to enough personal information).  Android is open-source, and a very short jump to the Linux world  :o.  Where with Chrome OS, that's totally under Google's control.  But, Google may at some point change direction.
I don't know what you are talking about, but Chrome OS is a massive success for google. Last year it overtook MacOS as the second most used OS for Desktops worldwide. Also it is kinda Open Source. The basic OS is Chromium OS, which is fully open source. Chrome OS is basically just Chromium with some addons and pre installed proprietary software (basically the integration into the google services is proprietary, but the whole OS is open source). It is like the difference between Chrome and Chromium.

That would be a terrible thing to do.  Lazarus and the LCL has embraced Android for many years already, with many people already have built and are maintaining Android apps.  We are really just talking about the other side of the mobile equation, more strongly embrace iOS too or that there would be an equivalent project like Laz4Android, thus Laz4iOS.
As already mentioned earlier, Laz4Android with LAMW is specifically tailored towards android. The whole architecture is build around android. Trying to build now an Laz4iOS that behaves similarly will only make problems down the line.
A good solution should provide a common interface that can easiely be mapped on both backends. Not an interface that was specifically tailored to one solution with the rest then having to be somehow fitted onto that. Because in the worst case, what can happen is that you will just end up with a simulator that just simulates android behavior so you can use LAMW, like Wine for Linux, which will only make everything much more complex.

Not everyone can be a developer.  Usually, you are talking people who are exceptional and/or very experienced, that will walk that path.  Most people aren't professional programmers, and a lot of people only engage in programming as a hobby.  Climbing the ranks to become an advanced enough programmer, in addition to time and interest, is not the easiest thing for everyone.  So, it might be a matter of trying to more actively find or encourage those with the needed abilities and interest.
I completely disagree on every level. A programming platform should make programming as easy as possible. The Problems a programmer has to solve are already hard enough on it's own, formalizing real world problems, finding algorithms to solve them and applying these solutions to the real world are in it self extremely hard. If aside from this you make the act of programming also really hard, all you do is gatekeep people who could potentially write really good and useful programs, just because they might not have the time or the will to go through additional hoops.
The best programming language would be one that takes an a specification or description of a program and turns it into a bug free fully fledged program. We won't have this any time soon, but we should at least try to come as close as possible to this ideal.

Warfley

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Re: Mobile development - Android & iOS
« Reply #27 on: December 08, 2021, 04:06:58 pm »
I agree with your point about focusing on customizable.  There is a strong argument about whether mobile users always expect or demand a "native look".  There are many cases and exceptions, where applications that didn't have a native look were embraced and successful.  This could also depend a lot on the type of application that it is as well.  It arguably comes down to how well that it's done.

In addition, by Lazarus already having LCL-CustomDrawn-Android, it then also creates the expectation to see LCL-CustomDrawn-iPhone.  It could be said that it comes off a bit weird to somewhat embrace Android, but not iOS.
I don't think that you need to have a native look, if you have the capabilities to make a good custom look. But many developers are neither good at developing great UIs and a good User Experience (it has a reason why these two areas are dedicated jobs with quite a good salary). The thing about native look is, that it is easy. If you make a windows application and just use windows form elements, it will generally look and behave fine. If you make a custom look, and aren't very good at it, it will look terrible.
Because the other side of the expectations is, if you do something special, the user will typically also expect something special. If you have a custom style, it better be good, otherwise, why would you use a custom look.

So having the native look available will always give you an OKish experience without effort, while a good custom look always requires effort and skills, many developers might not have. I for example am not confident in creating a good looking UI by myself.

MarkMLl

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Re: Mobile development - Android & iOS
« Reply #28 on: December 08, 2021, 04:33:17 pm »
In short, I don't have an answer other than suggesting that the people who complain about deficiencies in any particular LCL variant should be encouraged to engage with the development and maintenance projects... and I have very little expectation that that would be productive.
Not everyone can be a developer.  Usually, you are talking people who are exceptional and/or very experienced, that will walk that path.  Most people aren't professional programmers, and a lot of people only engage in programming as a hobby.  Climbing the ranks to become an advanced enough programmer, in addition to time and interest, is not the easiest thing for everyone.  So, it might be a matter of trying to more actively find or encourage those with the needed abilities and interest.
I completely disagree on every level. A programming platform should make programming as easy as possible. The Problems a programmer has to solve are already hard enough on it's own, formalizing real world problems, finding algorithms to solve them and applying these solutions to the real world are in it self extremely hard. If aside from this you make the act of programming also really hard, all you do is gatekeep people who could potentially write really good and useful programs, just because they might not have the time or the will to go through additional hoops.
The best programming language would be one that takes an a specification or description of a program and turns it into a bug free fully fledged program. We won't have this any time soon, but we should at least try to come as close as possible to this ideal.

I've restored an extra level of context there. The problem is that in the current case we're talking about how to fill in gaps in the LCL etc., and unfortunately at that level programming /can't/ be made easy since apart from anything else customising the LCL for Android (and potentially iOS) will undoubtedly show up shortcomings in the interface API which will necessitate negotiation with the maintainers of the other variants.

Programming /should/ be easy, but as soon as you discount the platitudes of the early BASIC, Smalltalk and Logo enthusiasts it very rarely is.

The encouraging thing is that it can be made slightly easier by the robust type checking etc. inherent in Pascal (and more recently Rust etc.). But in order to convince people of that they need to be able to develop for their chosen platform... and a console-based "Hello, World!" doesn't cut the mustard any more.

MarkMLl
« Last Edit: December 08, 2021, 04:37:22 pm by MarkMLl »
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Warfley

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Re: Mobile development - Android & iOS
« Reply #29 on: December 08, 2021, 04:49:00 pm »
Ah ok so I misunderstood this, I thought this was about that the application of the LCL frameworks for android and/or ios should be targetet at experienced programmers. This makes sense

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The encouraging thing is that it can be made slightly easier by the robust type checking etc. inherent in Pascal (and more recently Rust etc.). But in order to convince people of that they need to be able to develop for their chosen platform... and a console-based "Hello, World!" doesn't cut the mustard any more.
I think the most important part isn't the language itself, it's the tooling. I think one of the great features of Javascript, and why it is so popular, is because, basically you can just open up any editor, write 3 lines, double click it and it works.

Lazarus for Windows is also quite great, you just download the exe installer and everything works out of the box. But only if you develop on windows for windows. Even things like compiling for Linux on a Windows is pretty complicated

 

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