Roadmap for FPC and Lazarus (2023)

[marcov]

However, are you going to discourage developers who might be working on some electronic appliance that has no display, and the only graphical interface is a web page, from using Lazarus and Free Pascal?

That is not the right question. The questions are more  "should sparse resources be expended on that scenario at the cost of the primary goals ?"  and "Can you actually bring some value proposition to such targets that appeals to more people than just the niche of the niche crowd that will try everything if it is just Pascal, even desperate me-too attempts ?"

Talk of ChatGPT is easy, but keep in mind it requires a fairly recent videocard with 4GB to just somewhat run, and a server farm with a several times that to train. It will be a corporate plaything for a long time.

Which is another problem with the roadmap: lack of detail or links to articles that address such concepts.

[VisualLab]

Also a stable Docked/Anchored IDE, with native support for dark theme(s) would be a good thing. Younger developers run away just by looking at the IDE.

I like this idea very much. Will the form editor also be docked like in Delphi? One window for the entire IDE definitely makes work easier. I would also suggest: separating the view tree of controls from the proper object inspector (as it is done in Delphi) and adjusting the width of the divider on the right side. I have marked the details in the attached screenshot.

[VisualLab]

That's why there are still people who choose Lazarus, because it allows you to build windowed applications without trendy shit like Electron and node.js.

I couldn’t have said it better. I want nothing to do with anything that resembles web programming.

Many developers may fit into your category.

However, are you going to discourage developers who might be working on some electronic appliance that has no display, and the only graphical interface is a web page, from using Lazarus and Free Pascal?

It depends on what kind of electronic device it would be. If it was based on a board such as Raspberry Pi (generally some SBC), then you can communicate with such a device via a web browser (e.g. routers used every day at home). But you don't need Electron for that (works client side). In turn, putting node.js there would probably load the CPU of such a device too much. Of course it can be done. However, it seems to me that it would be better to use some simpler library, even written in C or Pascal. Things would be different if the device was based on a microcontroller. Then using Electron or node.js is not an option (too little RAM, Flash program).

My aversion to "applications" written in Electron and node.js (more generally: with the use of scripting technologies) comes from not very pleasant experiences in using them. It was similar when many years ago I tried to use desktop applications written in Java (mainly CASE programs for creating UML diagrams). The only program written in Java that I still use today is NetBeans. It's not perfect, it has occasional jams, but it still works quite well. On the other hand, pseudo-applications written with the use of scripting technologies work incomparably worse than those created in Java or C#. A book could be written on this subject. But it won't change anything. People are stubborn. They prefer to "crochet" in JavaScript or Python, rather than learning another solution, if only to have a comparison of the possibilities of individual solutions. It just takes time. Instead, it's easier for them to find a large group of people who will say "dude, our XYZ language is the best, don't waste your time on some old stuff" ("confirmation effect").

[Bogen85]

That's why there are still people who choose Lazarus, because it allows you to build windowed applications without trendy shit like Electron and node.js.

I couldn’t have said it better. I want nothing to do with anything that resembles web programming.

Many developers may fit into your category.

However, are you going to discourage developers who might be working on some electronic appliance that has no display, and the only graphical interface is a web page, from using Lazarus and Free Pascal?

... Then using Electron or node.js is not an option (too little RAM, Flash program).

I was primarily responding to the

nothing to do with anything that resembles web programming.

I too have an aversion to Electron and node.js applications.

There are many good Web UIs on low resource devices that are not JavaScript heavy client-side (or server side, and might not have any JavaScript server side).

[domasz]

Let's just say it straight - Electron is shit. It's just Chrome packed together with some code. Requires lots of CPU, GPU and RAM.
Apps written in Lazarus are super fast compared to Electron-powered craps.
Let's not ruin Lazarus.

[Bogen85]

Let's just say it straight - Electron is shit. It's just Chrome packed together with some code. Requires lots of CPU, GPU and RAM.
Apps written in Lazarus are super fast compared to Electron-powered craps.
Let's not ruin Lazarus.

Ok, maybe I did not make it clear enough...

... Then using Electron or node.js is not an option (too little RAM, Flash program).

I was primarily responding to the

nothing to do with anything that resembles web programming.

I too have an aversion to Electron and node.js applications.

I have an extreme aversion to Electron and node.js applications.
They are extreme crap, and proper native GUI app (like one gets from Lazarus) beats them hands down. You get no disagreement from me there.

As far was ever this vague and not fully defined Fresnel thing is, if it can help with the server side of Web UIs and not pollute both client/server with node.js and any resemblance to Electron on either side, it might be of interest to me. If it pollutess both side to make the end result feel like an Electron app, then not something I'd be interested in.

I saw the CSS parts mentioned. That is ambitious. Not sure if something like Fresnel could pull off that off without polluting both sides (client/server) to make them the crap we have a strong dislike of.

[Nicole]

Thank you so much! Great to read!

[PascalDragon]

It's new for me too. I assume it is the foundation's roadmap, not the projects themselves.

But nothing to see on the foundations page. I have checked this before i made my post

The editor of the magazine was a bit over-enthusiastic to publish this roadmap that he and a member of the FPC and Lazarus teams each thought of, but hadn't yet finalized. Though even if this would be published on the Foundation's site this roadmap doesn't have any final say in what we devs work at, cause we simply work at what we're interested in. And if no one should be interested to work on some point that the foundation mentions... well... though luck. 🤷‍♀️

Re. 6. That would indeed be useful. But... it will take at least a few years to achieve the capabilities of open source engines (OGRE, Torque3D, Irrlicht), provided that the project is developed regularly by at least 4-5 people. So it's work for years.

That point will be dropped in favor of existing game engines written in Pascal (e.g. Castle Game Engine).

But why decide the "core team" to make a "Freepascal and Lazarus foundation" and you can see the roadmap not there first.

The foundation wasn't a decision of the team as whole, but of a single member plus the editor from the Blaise Pascal magazine.

For me is the point -> who speaks for the official roadmap.

There is no official roadmap at least for FPC, cause we don't operate in that way.

[Joanna]

I’m no expert in all the new trendy programming languages. The gist of what I’m trying to say is that we should not feel inferior if fpc doesn’t have a lot of “modern” features and be desperate to imitate “modern” Things in hopes of getting more users.

I have extensive experience of this happening in gaming wherein the Developers of the game I liked tried to make it 3D like World of Warcraft. But failed miserably. Then they decided to make it item based like Diablo and turned it into a treadmill of collecting better and better items instead of the roleplay game it started as. The result was not only failing to lure players from other games, but also losing all the people who had enjoyed the game as it was originally. I don’t want the same sort of thing to happen to fpc, although thankfully I can just refuse to update if it does.

Bogen85 referred to the idea that some people might need something related to machines which can’t be done with fpc. My solution would be to redesign the machines so that they can be programmed in fpc 

Anything that takes us in the direction of replacing other languages with fpc I’m in favor of. I would like to create a website using only Lazarus/fpc.

[Bogen85]

Bogen85 referred to the idea that some people might need something related to machines which can’t be done with fpc. My solution would be to redesign the machines so that they can be programmed in fpc 

Did not mean to imply that. Many low end machines can already run FPC. And they could serve up a lightweight web UI app. (That can already be done now). So no need to redesign them and add extra hardware just to run a GUI on them.

Not sure about all the Fresnel "promised features" could aid in something like that, without turning it into something undesirable like domasz and I already discussed.

[Bogen85]

Anything that takes us in the direction of replacing other languages with fpc I’m in favor of. I would like to create a website using only Lazarus/fpc.

I'm not aware of any decent web servers written in free pascal.

A free pascal app could certainly serve up web pages and web apps and one could likely do a whole website.

However, it would likely need to sit behind an nginx, apache, or some other reverse proxy in order to perform adequately.

It is possible. If not internet facing the front end proxy might not be needed if the usage was low.

[Joanna]

I'm not aware of any decent web servers written in free pascal.

Well Hopefully some folks  more skilled than I am can take the initiative to make one  it would certainly help promote fpc.

[dbannon]

So, putting aside the offensive announcement itself, we seem to have some problems with the actual projects identified, mostly because they are not necessarily project that we, as individuals, support ? Just what was announced ?

Fresnel is already under way, a big risk, maybe a big payoff. Docked and dark colors works for many people already. Web Dev honestly is not my thing but I agree its important, but so is Mobile Apps, but that did not rate a mention ?

PDF Builder ?   I have just finished adding PDF capabilities to my app using fpPDF, it needed an ugly workaround with fonts but its fine for my purpose.
 
Gaming Engine ?  What about Castle ?

We have a great debugger already, "ultimate" is a silly term. "AI" is just a buzz word.

I think the magazine needed to fill a page in a hurry and made an phone call without explaining how the information was to be used. Be careful when talking to journalists.

Davo

[DonAlfredo]

I'm not aware of any decent web servers written in free pascal.

IMHO, this one is very decent.

https://github.com/synopse/mORMot2
https://github.com/eugeneilyin/mORMotBP
https://synopse.info/files/html/Synopse%20mORMot%20Framework%20SAD%201.18.html#TITLE_278

[PierceNg]

IMHO, this one is very decent.

https://github.com/synopse/mORMot2
https://github.com/eugeneilyin/mORMotBP
https://synopse.info/files/html/Synopse%20mORMot%20Framework%20SAD%201.18.html#TITLE_278

+1

I haven't used v1. Now tinkering with v2. It is fast and full of features.