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Troodon

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Re: Write Once Compile Nowhere!
« Reply #15 on: April 05, 2010, 08:27:24 pm »
I read recently an article about the market share :
Win32 80%, Linux 10%, Mac 5%, ... the efforts should be distributed in that order.

In terms of desktop market share I think it's more like: Windows 90 %; Mac OS X 8 %; Linux 2%. Of course, there are a lot more Linux servers than Linux desktops, mainly due to the recent industry switch from Unix to Linux.
« Last Edit: April 05, 2010, 08:29:10 pm by Troodon »
Lazarus/FPC on Linux

theo

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Re: Write Once Compile Nowhere!
« Reply #16 on: April 05, 2010, 09:37:51 pm »
Win32 80%, Linux 10%, Mac 5%, ... the efforts should be distributed in that order.

Not very convincing. If you put only 10% of the effort in Linux and 5% in Mac, then you can forget about cross platform.
The tool you're looking for with this logic is Delphi (100% Windows) ;-)

marcov

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Re: Write Once Compile Nowhere!
« Reply #17 on: April 05, 2010, 09:51:00 pm »
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.

It is a bit naieve to only consider it as one global markets. Some markets (most notably windows) are very estabilished and saturated with tools. Some other platforms are very shielded by their vendors (e.g. OS X, but in a different way also Linux due to every changing and badly documented apis)

If you really want to go this way, you'll have to find out what FPC/Lazarus users make money with. And I bet that is mostly Linux server apps.

Marc

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Re: Write Once Compile Nowhere!
« Reply #18 on: April 06, 2010, 12:24:00 am »
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.

I bet lazarus itself would run on ubunto 9.10. So that at least one.

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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.

iirs in sqlite everythin is a string. I myself won't call it a database. What did you use to access it ?

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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.

No of coarse not. When all ppl like you just tell us that it doesn't work, it won't get fixed. You know, we are not clairvoyant, so we don't know what it is, what you have tried, what code you used etc.


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mrmikehicks

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Re: Write Once Compile Nowhere!
« Reply #19 on: April 06, 2010, 01:36:32 am »
Marc, I have created a sample program that demonstrates the problem that I am having with sqlite3dataset. When trying to load blob data from the database into a TImage component, I get a jpeg error of some sort. I tared up the sample app that shows this but it is too large to put on this forum, so I put it on my local ftp server for anyone to download and try. I will try to post this sample app with some info as a bug report (don't even know how to do that yet, but I will figure it out.)

That's one problem. A second problem, that I will also create bug report for is the zeos zconnection/zquery combo on ubuntu 9.10 amd64. As soon as I set the database (sqlite3) parameters and try to set the zconnection to true, I get an immediate 'access violation' with no other info. I tested this by creating a new program, dropping the zconnection, zquery and datasource components, on the form, then I put a couple of dbedit fields just see some database data. Nothing else in the program, but when I set connected to true on the zconnection, I get the 'access violation'.

mrmikehicks

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Re: Write Once Compile Nowhere!
« Reply #20 on: April 06, 2010, 01:43:02 am »
Re the market share, numbers be what they may, I know a few MAC users and when any new software comes along, they are all (all 5% of them I think) in a big hurry to get their hands on it, I don't want to ignore that group of people. I think there must be a difference in the number of MAC users, and the number of MAC users that buy MAC software, that the market numbers are not addressing. Even if its only 5%, that's still a lot of customers, if most of them are buying.
     Mike

cpalx

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Re: Write Once Compile Nowhere!
« Reply #21 on: April 06, 2010, 05:07:08 am »
To use zeos in linux with 64 bits architecture, you must use zeos 7 (it is in alfa state) but i didnot have any problems yet. If you want the stable one you must use linux in 32bits.

Remember Zeos is a component it not depends on just from Lazarus. For example Did you try to use OpenGL without 3D support?.... just think about it

Lazarus rocks.

** I love/hate indy componets, does not work as espectect in Linux

skalogryz

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Re: Write Once Compile Nowhere!
« Reply #22 on: April 06, 2010, 08:11:11 am »
Marc, I have created a sample program that demonstrates the problem that I am having with sqlite3dataset. When trying to load blob data from the database into a TImage component, I get a jpeg error of some sort.
* What you need is to save the read blob data into a file and see if it is actually jpeg file.  
This would point where the bug happens, since in it can be in both jpeg reading and/or sqlite component.

Marc

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Re: Write Once Compile Nowhere!
« Reply #23 on: April 06, 2010, 10:12:03 am »
Marc, I have created a sample program that demonstrates the problem that I am having with sqlite3dataset. When trying to load blob data from the database into a TImage component, I get a jpeg error of some sort.
* What you need is to save the read blob data into a file and see if it is actually jpeg file.  
This would point where the bug happens, since in it can be in both jpeg reading and/or sqlite component.

jpeg reading and writing should be ok since thats done for files too.
It is indeed a test I would suggest too. I've seen some databases/database connections who "alter" the contents of blobs. (took us some time to figure out that bde+oracle skipped byte 2049 of a blob)

That's one problem. A second problem, that I will also create bug report for is the zeos zconnection/zquery combo on ubuntu 9.10 amd64. As soon as I set the database (sqlite3) parameters and try to set the zconnection to true, I get an immediate 'access violation' with no other info. I tested this by creating a new program, dropping the zconnection, zquery and datasource components, on the form, then I put a couple of dbedit fields just see some database data. Nothing else in the program, but when I set connected to true on the zconnection, I get the 'access violation'.

Zeos is a different project and not related to lazarus. I never tried it together with Lazarus (i'm using it professionally with delphi without probs)
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marcov

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Re: Write Once Compile Nowhere!
« Reply #24 on: April 06, 2010, 01:28:35 pm »
Re the market share, numbers be what they may, I know a few MAC users and when any new software comes along, they are all (all 5% of them I think) in a big hurry to get their hands on it, I don't want to ignore that group of people. I think there must be a difference in the number of MAC users, and the number of MAC users that buy MAC software, that the market numbers are not addressing. Even if its only 5%, that's still a lot of customers, if most of them are buying.
    

Wanting and being doable is two different points. The problem with Mac is

- Selling shareware and other small apps to private persons generally involve less money, and the overhead per sale (sales channel, support etc) is _relatively_ high.
- The mac crowd mostly insist on having apps with a perfect "Mac" feeling which makes selling multiplatform apps on Mac difficult.
- The third problem is what I already said, the Mac crowd is spread out over several versions and the API is more in a state of flux than e.g. Windows.

vfclists

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Re: Write Once Compile Nowhere!
« Reply #25 on: April 14, 2010, 01:10:10 pm »
I don't think Lazarus is the problem.

Communication is, and that means blogging, our own githubs, launchpads etc, and the like. The ability to see documented source quickly with just a few clicks in the browser. Lots of links to documented source.

The precompiled component mindset from the Delphi world just isn't working here, given the fact of rapid changes in SVN.

Source is the most important, and that means sources to  configurations, especially when it comes to installing components, building the IDE etc, and Redmine or something similar for SCM and project management. I often ran into unit not found issues when a simple Ctrl-Enter on the source file brings it up in the IDE, then I ask myself 'What is going on!!?? the file is right there!!'

There should be more use of preconfigured VMs as well, as it looks (from my newbie end) that the time required to set up an environment will take more time than it takes to locate and fix the problem. With Linux this shouldn't be a problem, but Windows licensing which makes it nigh impossible to have ready distributed VMs doesn't help a twit. Microsoft could help by making easing licensing restrictions on VMs used for developing, which it does for Visual Studio, unsurprisingly.

I do find it the Lazarus environment frustrating some times, but it works well. It is much more stable and reliable than I expected from a free development environment.

Not having a centralized source for components such as ruby's rubyforge doesn't help.

The look of the CSS on the wiki doesn't help, neither does that on this wiki. I find myself surprised at the quality of the stuff when I see how the community web sites look. Do Delphi/Freepascal users have an aversion to WordPress, Drupal, or many of the other tools out there? The FreePascal/Lazarus community is in need for Web 2.0 make over. Fluff matters.

Announcements often do not contain links to demos and blogs. It comes down to blogs, blogs, blogs. The Developer Blog has had only one new article since the beginning of this year. No one would know how good Lazarus is from seeing that. Announcements could really do with a proper website.

I also feel that perhaps Lazarus developers should focus more on the Linux environment then port to Windows, I think Windows is too well served by Delphi if the user is willing to pay. I find myself using Lazarus rather than Delphi because I suspect that if I get back into Delphi habit, I will find the the going so easy that I won't be tempted to contribute to Lazarus, and Lazarus is good.

I think professional/commercial developers ought to blog more about their use of Lazarus. They may not be willing for commercial reasons but Lazarus does need that.

My 2 euro cents. I could contribute more than 2, but not everyone would want to keep reading for that long.

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,
Lazarus 3.0/FPC 3.2.2

Marc

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Re: Write Once Compile Nowhere!
« Reply #26 on: April 14, 2010, 10:36:31 pm »
Do Delphi/Freepascal users have an aversion to WordPress, Drupal, or many of the other tools out there? The FreePascal/Lazarus community is in need for Web 2.0 make over. Fluff matters.

Be my guest. Just a few months ago there was a lengthy discussion about this on the lazarus mailing list. How to restyle the site. What software should be used. Should we use Drupal/Joomla/Wordpress or should we write something ourselves to show the power of fps/lazarus. A few concepts were shown and then......

.... it was quiet. Nothing. History seems repeating, since that discussion happened last year, the year before that and before and before and....

So despite all promises and words what we should do... nothing...

From the free time I have, I spend most in development of lazarus, read the forum and reading mail. Keeping a website running is just part of the job, but not the primary and ultimate goal. So we want something simple, easy to maintain. And be able to control the site when something happens.
The current site does what it is supposed to do. Give ppl pointers, let ppl communicate and report bugs. Seen the growing amount of members, postings, mails and bugs, ppl seem to find their way.

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Announcements often do not contain links to demos and blogs. It comes down to blogs, blogs, blogs. The Developer Blog has had only one new article since the beginning of this year. No one would know how good Lazarus is from seeing that. Announcements could really do with a proper website.

Who should write those ? I was often asked to write things on the lazarus blog while I was working on the graphic. But I can only do one thing at the time, either finish the things I'm working on or write some blog. I'm a devel, not a blogger.

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I also feel that perhaps Lazarus developers should focus more on the Linux environment then port to Windows, I think Windows is too well served by Delphi if the user is willing to pay.

You forgot that lazarus made a big jump in users when we were able to develop for windows. And not everyone can afford delphi.


(and another night not spend on finishing/fixing stuff)
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Wodzu

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Re: Write Once Compile Nowhere!
« Reply #27 on: April 15, 2010, 02:13:42 pm »
Do Delphi/Freepascal users have an aversion to WordPress, Drupal, or many of the other tools out there? The FreePascal/Lazarus community is in need for Web 2.0 make over. Fluff matters.

Be my guest. Just a few months ago there was a lengthy discussion about this on the lazarus mailing list. How to restyle the site. What software should be used. Should we use Drupal/Joomla/Wordpress or should we write something ourselves to show the power of fps/lazarus. A few concepts were shown and then......

.... it was quiet. Nothing. History seems repeating, since that discussion happened last year, the year before that and before and before and....

So despite all promises and words what we should do... nothing...

Personally I love current design for the website. I can hardly  imagine something else here to be needed. Site gives me everything what I need.
FPC site is the other story, but again it could be a matter of taste. But I find mailing list a way harder to communicate than this forum.

tatamata

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Re: Write Once Compile Nowhere!
« Reply #28 on: April 15, 2010, 07:52:59 pm »
Well, I think that effort should be taken to simplify Lazarus+FPC installation of various Linux distribution, because, currently it sucks.

marcov

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Re: Write Once Compile Nowhere!
« Reply #29 on: April 15, 2010, 09:07:00 pm »
Well, I think that effort should be taken to simplify Lazarus+FPC installation of various Linux distribution, because, currently it sucks.


Certainly true. Unfortunately, while a bit more manpower wouldn't hurt, it is mostly because of Linux distro policies.

 

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