Write Once Compile Nowhere!

[mrmikehicks]

I'm really getting sick of lazarus and all the free (i.e., worthless) components out there. I understand that a lot of people have put a lot of effort into porting things over to lazarus, but please don't throw it out there IF IT DOESN'T WORK. The whole promise of lazarus is multiplatform, but everybody seems to forget that when putting out components. It's supposed to be an easy process, just write your code on one machine and when you're happy with it, just transfer the code to the other OS and recompile it again. Other than :   showmessage('hello world');  for a program, absolutely nothing works on more than one platform. ZEOS has a wonderful set of database components that I used to put together a rather lengthy program on win32, but it's not 'write once compile anywhere'   it's really 'WRITE ONCE, THEN SCREW WITH IT FOR WEEKS ON END TRYING TO EVER GET IT TO WORK ON ANY OTHER MACHINE ON THE PLANET.' Orpheus, is same animal, works fine on win32, but try putting IT on any other machine and even getting it to compile. Nothing in this whole environment works 'out of the box'. Did I miss somethng or is 64bit Linux a thing of the past and not to be dealt with. I haven't even approached the MAC problems yet, other than my first attempt at a simple 'hello world' which worked until i put in a calendar dialog. This is never going to fly at this rate. I'm ready to just give up on linux and mac cross platform, and then at that point why in hell would I ever mess with lazarus instead of just buying Delphi where almost everything does work 'out of the box' That's all for my rant tonight. I'm sure things will get better with time,

[fredycc]

Hello mrmikehicks, for me the Lazarus is a great project, I have developed app, for windows, opensuse and leopard with database & windows mobile. Zeos is a good set of component I use it for ms sql server 2005 and firebird 2.1.3 (blob data), I have written .dll & .so (udf) for firebird with laz, now I can install firebird server for windows and opensuse with the "same" udf with any problem; but you need investigate, ask to the forum, test -> time.

If you don't have enough money like me you can use some virtualization software.

The last project for me was try to send a sms with lazarus i can do it just windows, but when I have time I'll test in linux why not.  

I'm agree with you when you say:  I'm sure things will get better with time.

[mrmikehicks]

Thanks, nice to know something is working for someone at least.
     Mike

[typo]

Advertise a Bounty for someone to do it for you.

http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Bounties

[dfeher]

OK, buy Delphi and then show us the screenshots of your Delphi program running on any other platform than Win32. :-)

OR

You should use the bug report

OR

Just try to develop something for Lazarus instead of complaining about other people's work.

[theo]

I'm ready to just give up on linux and mac cross platform, and then at that point why in hell would I ever mess with lazarus instead of just buying Delphi where almost everything does work 'out of the box'

If you need windows only and if you are willing to pay then buy Delphi.
If you would like to continue using Lazarus, then make bug reports or fix the bugs and contribute to the development. Ranting does not help.

[JanRoza]

I think that just hollering "Nothing works" is blaming others for your own errors as I use Lazarus for some two years now and all installed components are working as expected.
Of course every now and then I too think a component is faulty, but almost always it turns out that it's me and not the component that screwed things up.

A better way to use this forum would be to just ask for help and give a detailed description of your problems. My experience is there is always a Lazarus guru somewhere who knows the answer and is willing to help, but being polite instead of just plain negative sometimes helps to get that support.

 
Jan
(a most times very satisfied Lazarus user)

[LazaruX]

If you only want to develop for Windows, then use Lazarus, cause you sayd above that most of the things work for you on Win32.
If you want to develop of other platforms use Delp....ehm use ...ehm ,actually I think only Lazarus is there for you cause Delphi also only works on Windows.
I can understand your frustration, but respect others work.
Yesterday I had a look at Delphi's prices and I jumped from my chair, I got scared ;-)
With my small cross patform experience, Lazarus worked fine on Windows and Linux.

[Leledumbo]

I've developed some commercial apps and many free open source apps with Lazarus and Free Pascal. So far, everything works well. It teaches me any coding issues that would appear when programming cross platform apps (layout, speed, incompatibilities, etc.). My other colleagues choose to code in Java for this, but they suffer from slow and huge runtime requirement, plus they don't get any experience of how things work from one system to other.

[mrmikehicks]

Well, the sun is up again, another day, and I will be back at it, trying new things. I am sorry for my 4:00AM rant last night, and I do respect the work others have done. I have a house full of computers, MAC minis, PC's, and Linux. Unfortunately my only linux box atm is ubuntu 9.10 running on an AMD64, so just about nothing in the lazarus world works on that linux system. The app I'm currently trying to develop uses sqlite3 with blob fields for images. I've been thru firebird, thinking that would make for an easy distro, but then had cross platform problems immediately with fb. So I discovered sqlite, and then sqlite3 (for blobs), but as I have stated, as soon as I move away from win32, it all goes to hell. I will start using the bug reports, but I am discouraged that many of the posts and bug reports I have looked at on this forum are dated like me. I try to read and search the forum for answers before posting, but the information is 2 or 3 years old, and I think surely, THAT must have been fixed by now, and of course it hasn't been fixed yet. I am still hopeful because I have received answers to many questions that (att) seemed to be show stoppers for me, so I guess, this too will pass. Thanks to all of you again.
     Mike

[Troodon]

Perhaps the issue here is that most Lazarus/FPC application/component developers only test their code on one platform and do not have the logistics to test-compile it on all platforms in order to fix any incompatibilities. When source code is released, the developers should clearly indicate what platforms the code has successfully compiled on. Something like: "Source code for Lazarus/FPC. Developed/tested on Win32 and Win64".

[cpalx]

I have a relly complex software made in lazarus and goes fine in Windows/Linux using Zeos+powerpdf+SNgradient+other components

i just had problems in ubuntu 64bits (Zeos) and i solved using the las svn version. Come on Lazarus rocks its pretty, and great, even with some bugs it has

[mrmikehicks]

cpalx, When did you get the svn shot and do you still have the svn snapshot url??  zeos working on ubuntu 64 bit is exactly what I need but can't seem to find right now. I am able to load zeos on the amd64, but as soon as I try to access an sqlite3 database, I get an error 'Access Violation'. No other clues as to what it is about. Do you have sqlite3 installed on you ubuntu 64 bit machine?? If so can you access sqlite3 using zeos??
     Thanks
     Mike

[stocki]

I think one problem of Lazarus/FPC is, that it supports to many platforms and GUIs. There should be a concentration on 2 or 3 platforms/GUIs. First make the existing things bullet prof than add new features.

I read recently an article about the market share :
Win32 80%, Linux 10%, Mac 5%, ... the efforts should be distributed in that order.

[skalogryz]

I read recently an article about the market share :
Win32 80%, Linux 10%, Mac 5%, ... the efforts should be distributed in that order.

but they're