Lazarus

Installation => General => Topic started by: AkiFoblesia on June 09, 2007, 04:30:13 pm

Title: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: AkiFoblesia on June 09, 2007, 04:30:13 pm
i do not intend to start a flame war.

but on the outset, this is how i see it:

lazarus advantages over free turbo delphi:
-  more components
-  open source
-  more active community, or so it seems
-  components can be added (in delphi, this is available only with the paid version)

lazarus disadvantages against free turbo delphi:
-  far more buggy
-  less expert advise
-  less programs available that show credibility

so, w/c is a better choice?

for general purposes, i would say free turbo delphi for now, though lazarus must not be totally counted out.

for database using firebird, however, lazarus has a very strong point against free turbo delphi in that it can accomodate additional components. in this case, i would say try both :D
Title: RE: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: theo on June 09, 2007, 05:01:54 pm
You forgot the most important advantage of Lazarus:
Cross platform
Title: RE: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: Vincent Snijders on June 09, 2007, 05:06:57 pm
For win32 by all means use Turbo Delphi. The Lazarus community is small so the less people to support the better.

BTW, is Turbo Delphi availbale for windows 64 bits.
Title: Re: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: Phil on June 09, 2007, 05:43:59 pm
Quote from: "AkiFoblesia"
i do not intend to start a flame war.



Just use both and decide for yourself which is more appropriate for any particular project.

The more compilers and the more platforms you run your code against, the more likely it is that you'll find bugs.

It's not difficult to maintain a single codebase that you can compile with Delphi on Windows and with Lazarus on Windows, OS X and Linux.

http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/XDev_Toolkit
Title: RE: Re: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: felipemdc on June 09, 2007, 07:03:07 pm
This kind of question "Is X or Y better?" is basically unanswerable, and also pointless.

Different projects have different requirements, so different tools will be more appropriate. No single tool will be the best available on all cases and serve to solve all problems on the works better then anything else.

Each different project will have a different answer for this question.
Title: RE: Re: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: bee on June 10, 2007, 05:59:03 pm
@AkiFoblesia: http://beeography.wordpress.com/2006/09/27/and-here-is-her-cousin/
Title: RE: Re: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: Zaher on June 11, 2007, 02:44:12 am
Turbo Delphi or Delphi 2007?.

Quote

- far more buggy
- less expert advise
- less programs available that show credibility

This is temporary things or unreal.
Title: RE: Re: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: antonio on June 16, 2007, 07:49:08 pm
The Win64 support  is a strong point, Lazarus license too. In Latin America Linux is very popular and sometimes  Lazarus comes together on a package. It's very easy to download last stable version of Lazarus in several download brazilian sites too. So our brazilian forum is the second in the world.

Maybe it's so for Delphi and Turbo Delphi too, which run under Wine on Linux, so crossplatform feature of Lazarus isn't so important here. You can make a Delphi program to run on Linux under Wine. Lazarus, Delphi and Turbo Delphi share space with Java and C++.

Linux is used mainly on small businesses beyond state and academic uses. There are some big companies which have their own Linux distributions. There is some piracy of Delphi, which tends to diminish,  and use of Lazarus tends to increase because of this, and because of the advantages of Lazarus license. For daily work people use both Lazarus and Delphi, sometimes writing in Delphi and compiling with Lazarus.

I think it's the same in other parts like Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.

Lazarus is growing so support tends to be important. It's important to a professional tool. However I guess it will be up to each local forum.

I think that another strong point to Lazarus is the open source feature. This brings the credibility that a long list of applications would do, since you can see the code. Open source also moves away suspicions of piracy or spyware. While Lazarus emulates Delphi's IDE, Borland tries to emulate open source. Perhaps this works fine for a while.

Another amazing feature for non-english language people is the translated IDE.

OpenOffice is popular now and people feel encouraged to try Lazarus as well.

So, why Lazarus? Because its license is better, you can make your program to run on Linux and it's open source. Lazarus has a real chance to be the standard on these parts of the world. There's a marketing case to be studied in Brazil.
Title: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: BuffaloX on June 24, 2007, 11:17:32 am
I used to love Delphi and was very impressed when Delphi 2 came out.
But Delphi has been skipping sideways ever since IMO. Never really improving in areas that has my interest.

The free version has gotten worse from what I understand, and the License is quite restrictive IMO.
I only program a little for fun, so I don't want to pay the steep price for Delphi,
But I don't want something that doesn't really work either.
Delphi trial versions doesn't really work because of limitations and restrictions IMO.
I never understood why Borland didn't make a reasonably priced single user version, without all the corporate junk, but one that supported multimedia, directX and OpenGL better. It could have been HUGE I think.

The latest couple of years I used Windows, I had stopped doing any programming altogether,
I felt like all the fun had gone out of it. MS was dominating the market completely, and I don't like their tools. ( Slow compilers, loads of bugs, hidden info you have to pay to get access to, zero innovation )
Still MS is the authority in the Windows World, so they can't be ignored.

Since I ported to Linux, and discovered Lazarus FPC, I have completely lost interest in Delphi and Windows.

I actually FEEL the freedom I heard "Linux Zealots" preaching about.
Maybe I'm even becoming a zealot myself, because I think the new scheme from MS about offering free programming tools, is to prevent people from using Linux compatible tools. Am I getting paranoid?

All in all, if you like Delphi, you can use it "as is".
Or if you like Lazarus, you can either use it "as is" or
Join in on improving it, and changing it so it better fits your needs.

The choice is yours...
Title: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: Farshad on June 27, 2007, 11:36:21 pm
Free Turbo Delphi aka Turbo Delphi Explorer doesn't allow adding 3rd party components and it is a very big limitation if you want to do something commercial. The biggest advantage of Lazarus is its CrossPlatform capability.
Title: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: LazaruX on June 29, 2007, 09:37:41 am
Quote

lazarus disadvantages against free turbo delphi:
- far more buggy


The programmers that programmed Delphi are professionals which have studied for their work,
Lazarus has been created by single users who not about programming, these users aren't always experts, haven't always studied programming, but still contributed to Lazarus.
Also remember that Lazarus isn't even at its first version, and it already has a lot of capabilities.

Quote

You can make a Delphi program to run on Linux under Wine.

Not all application work on Wine, and also, when it work its wine that lets your application work, not Delphi.
Title: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: LazaruX on June 29, 2007, 09:39:58 am
.
Title: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: LazaruX on June 29, 2007, 09:50:16 am
X
Title: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: antonio on July 15, 2007, 10:17:02 pm
People see Lazarus as a high quality tool, which is not entirely functional yet.
Title: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: Almindor on July 15, 2007, 10:41:24 pm
I wouldn't call Delphi programmers "experts". They did a lot of good, and a lot of unimaginably stupid decisions in the past which still haunt us. Borland started off with better developers, but that doesn't mean they still have them. The main guy was hired by M$ I think for example, and many probably left. I wouldn't be surprised if most of them today are new people. Sure they got experience in the field yada yada, but I wouldn't say that they are more skilled than FPC/Lazarus creators. FPC and Lazarus achieved a lot on itself which isn't quite visible by the user. Borland had it much easier concentrating on one platform.

The main difference is that with OSS (no matter which project) you will never get the big polish going on, so it's always possible to find bugs, on the other hand the good news is that you can usually get them fixed (even if you're not a programmer/skilled enough, just being helpful, providing backtraces etc.) quite soon, which for me is more important (it's horrible to find a bug in closed source because you can't do much about it for months at least).
Title: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: LazaruX on August 09, 2007, 09:27:15 am
Quote
with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?  


:oops: Answer this questions first, then you will get the answer to your question.

with Microsoft Windows out there, why Linux?
with Borland Pascal out there, why FreePascal?
with Porsche out there, why Ferrari?
with Coca Cola out there, why Pepsi Cola?
with Google out there, why Live Search?
Title: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: RudieD on August 14, 2007, 12:22:22 pm
Quote
with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?


First point Turbo Delphi the IDE NEED the .NET framework to run (No need for more reasons).
Title: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: tech-pro on August 18, 2007, 04:47:42 pm
The best reason for "Why Lazarus?" if you aren't interested in cross-platform development is that it is open source.

It isn't going to disappear, as other development tools have done, because the people who own it decide that it doesn't make enough money to continue supporting.

Given the chequered career of Borland, that must have been a concern of quite a few of us.
Title: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: antonio on August 20, 2007, 11:56:41 pm
People do are interested on cross-platform development for Windows/Linux/PDAs.

Beyond this, Lazarus can be an excellent educational tool as well, with its open source values of solidarity and work in team.
Title: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: arnoldb on August 21, 2007, 05:45:49 pm
I agree with antonio.  I have developed in Delphi for years, and till recently, it has suited my needs.  Then last year, my company started a project that incorporates Windows CE based bar code scanners.  Windows Vista also brought a consideration: The costs involved in upgrading not only software, but hardware as well is prohibitive here in Namibia.  So just by looking at the future, Lazarus becomes a clear choice - I can develop for installed OSses, cater for the very likely migration to Linux based servers and workstations, and develop for the barcode scanners, all in one place without losing future usability, and all this in a language and programming environment that requires very little training for myself.  This is simply UNBEATABLE!.
Title: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: antonio on August 26, 2007, 09:48:27 pm
Before FPC, there was no competition to Delphi. And to an open source project like FPC or Lazarus, the lazy criticism which doesn't want to make efforts is inadmissible.
Title: Re: RE: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: henrytj on August 28, 2007, 01:03:20 pm
Quote from: "Vincent"
For win32 by all means use Turbo Delphi. The Lazarus community is small so the less people to support the better.

BTW, is Turbo Delphi availbale for windows 64 bits.


This is an amazingly irresponsible comment. Do others here really share this attitude? Do you really want FP and Lazarus to get the same secret society/cult like reputation that C and Unix started with? (And still haunts those btw.)

If you tell your user base to "go away" they may very well do that and not come back. Then FP/Lazarus might end up being a historical Wikipedia entry of something that was tried but failed.

Henry
Title: Re: RE: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: Vincent Snijders on August 28, 2007, 01:54:46 pm
Quote from: "henrytj"
Quote from: "Vincent"
For win32 by all means use Turbo Delphi. The Lazarus community is small so the less people to support the better.


This is an amazingly irresponsible comment.


Why irresponsible? I think for win32, Turbo Delphi is the better choice, create by maybe 10 fold the number of developers as Lazarus and although I never used Turbo Delphi, I think its quality is equal or maybe better than Lazarus's . And although Delphi's community is decreasing and Lazarus's comunity is growing, I think Delphi's community is still bigger. These two assumptions (I first wrote facts here) make me say, that for win32, Turbo Delphi is a better choice, certainly, if you are still in doubt.

Quote
Do others here really share this attitude?

No, idea. I hope others will respond here too, so you get a balenced view.

Quote
Do you really want FP and Lazarus to get the same secret society/cult like reputation that C and Unix started with? (And still haunts those btw.)

I never heard that part of the history. Unfortunately it didn't help killing C (let's do some C-bashing for a change) and unix like OS-es (Linux, Mac OS X) are still with us too.

Quote
If you tell your user base to "go away" they may very well do that and not come back. Then FP/Lazarus might end up being a historical Wikipedia entry of something that was tried but failed.


As long as I don't scare away contributors, I don't mind. :-) Lazarus, in the first place needs contributors to survive, not users. Even if nobody except 5 Lazarus developers, use Lazarus, Lazarus will survive.

This may change if there is a Lazarus / FPC Foundation and we grow dependant on users. Fortunately this is not the case yet.
Title: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: henrytj on August 28, 2007, 01:56:01 pm
Quote from: "tech-pro"


It isn't going to disappear, as other development tools have done, because the people who own it decide that it doesn't make enough money to continue supporting.



Sounds like potentially famous last words. I have seen this claim on other things that "went away."

Henry
Title: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: Vincent Snijders on August 28, 2007, 01:58:31 pm
Quote from: "henrytj"
Quote from: "tech-pro"


It isn't going to disappear, as other development tools have done, because the people who own it decide that it doesn't make enough money to continue supporting.



Sounds like potentially famous last words. I have seen this claim on other things that "went away."

Henry


Can you give an example? Of an open source project that disapeared because they developers stopped developing because it didn't bring in enough money?
Title: Re: RE: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: henrytj on August 28, 2007, 02:28:32 pm
Quote from: "Vincent"
Quote from: "henrytj"
Quote from: "Vincent"
For win32 by all means use Turbo Delphi. The Lazarus community is small so the less people to support the better.


This is an amazingly irresponsible comment.


Why irresponsible? I think for win32, Turbo Delphi is the better choice, create by maybe 10 fold the number of developers as Lazarus and although I never used Turbo Delphi, I think its quality is equal or maybe better than Lazarus's . And although Delphi's community is decreasing and Lazarus's comunity is growing, I think Delphi's community is still bigger. These two assumptions (I first wrote facts here) make me say, that for win32, Turbo Delphi is a better choice, certainly, if you are still in doubt.


Now that I know about Turbo Dephi I will look into it. Especially if it is better on Windows OS. My intended use is to write my own image/video special effects apps that Photoshop and my animation software doesn't seem to handle the way I want. So this will only be for my own use, at least at the present.

If Turbo Delphi seems better, better supported, more throughly documented, and does JPEGs, then I will likely use that and put FP/Lazarus on the shelf. I would love to support an open source project, but if this is the attitude...

And the other parts of your post, you either must be joking, or have gone through life with blinders on.

Henry
Title: RE: Re: RE: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: antonio on August 28, 2007, 02:41:53 pm
henrytj, don't worry. You are important.  Be a contributor.
Title: Re: RE: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: Vincent Snijders on August 28, 2007, 02:42:34 pm
Quote from: "henrytj"
Now that I know about Turbo Dephi I will look into it.
Yes, please do. Turbo Delphi has some limitations (windows only, no support for custom components at design time).

Quote
Especially if it is better on Windows OS.

As longs as you don't need to cross the 2 GB border and want to use a 64 bits compiler.
Quote
My intended use is to write my own image/video special effects apps that Photoshop and my animation software doesn't seem to handle the way I want. So this will only be for my own use, at least at the present.
I think both pascal environments can do the job, TD and FPC/Lazarus.
Quote
If Turbo Delphi seems better, better supported, more throughly documented, and does JPEGs, then I will likely use that and put FP/Lazarus on the shelf.
If ..., then yes, it will wise to do so. I am not such a person that would recommend Open Source, just because it is Open Source. It has to give something extra beyond that.
Quote
I would love to support an open source project,


How would you like to support this open source project?
Quote
but if this is the attitude...

What attitude do you mean? That I recommend people to use Turbo Delphi instead of Lazarus, if I think that Turbo Delphi might be better for them? I think that this an honest way of handling. It would be no use if you started using FPC / Lazarus and become frustrated because it doesn't meet your expectations.

Quote
And the other parts of your post, you either must be joking, or have gone through life with blinders on.
I was not aware of being all the way (yes, the C bashing was a joke), but I do have a feeling we don't understand each other very well.
Title: Re: RE: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: henrytj on August 28, 2007, 02:54:12 pm
Quote from: "Vincent"


Quote
Do you really want FP and Lazarus to get the same secret society/cult like reputation that C and Unix started with? (And still haunts those btw.)

I never heard that part of the history. Unfortunately it didn't help killing C (let's do some C-bashing for a change) and unix like OS-es (Linux, Mac OS X) are still with us too.



I just did a search on OS market shares. Here is one link.

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=2

Between Windows and Mac they have 98%+ of the OS market share. Linux has less than 1%. For 15 years Unix fans have told me how Unix was on the verge of leading the OS market. It has never even come close to happening. And Unix is even free!!!

I don't want Unix to go away. If you like it then great. I, and apparently most people, don't like it.

Sorry, but that is the reality of the situation.
Title: RE: Re: RE: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: antonio on August 28, 2007, 03:00:48 pm
This market share is valid only for USA, or USA and Western Europe. It is not so outside this region. Linux is growing.

Come to Lazarus.
Title: Re: RE: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: Vincent Snijders on August 28, 2007, 03:11:32 pm
Quote from: "henrytj"
Quote from: "Vincent"



I just did a search on OS market shares. Here is one link.

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=2

Between Windows and Mac they have 98%+ of the OS market share. Linux has less than 1%.


Except that Mac OS X is a unix variant. But the figures are convincing. If want to make a commercially viable IDE, I should focus on windows and then on Mac OS X. Borland (and now CodeGear) take the right part of the pie. Lazarus / FPC doesn't have to make commercially sound plans and can opt for the commercially less attractive linux side. The win32 part of Lazarus merely a nice side effect, (OK, this is a hyperbool).

Quote
For 15 years Unix fans have told me how Unix was on the verge of leading the OS market. It has never even come close to happening. And Unix is even free!!!
Sorry, but that is the reality of the situation.


I don't think FPC/Lazarus is ever going to be the top development environment. It just does a good job, but that is not what sells or what people want.

I am not going to tell you next year is the year of the Lazarus break through. It should be good enough for you now and if it is not, then don't use it.

BTW: I think it will be good enough for you, because you don't hesitate to ask questions and found your way to the Lazarus community.
Title: RE: Re: RE: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: Almindor on August 28, 2007, 07:49:10 pm
Apart from the fact that "market share" is completely useless indicator, why are we wasting time talking to this troll?
Title: RE: Re: RE: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: antonio on August 28, 2007, 08:41:23 pm
For my understanding, the thread's question should be: with Lazarus out there, why Turbo Delphi?

On the other hand, Delphi users sometimes make insoluble questions about "Why Lazarus does not make this or that, as Delphi does". They should come to the project and share their problems and solutions.
Title: RE: Re: RE: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: RudieD on August 28, 2007, 09:00:29 pm
I got Ubuntu 7.0.4 going on my PC @ home with compiz/fusion. With the performance of the 3D desktop and a few other apps on my AMD ath XP 2400+ (cutting edge :) I feel sorry for people with Vista (some of my friends) who have PC from the begining of the year (~ 3800+) and suffer the speed Tax. Most of them are now at least dual booting. The more you play, the more you want to play.  I know of a few co's here in South Africa that have started to port their Apps from Win Delphi to Win FPC/Lazarus and will then after that start the win to Linux move. The performance increase is just to big to ignore.

I have also ported one of our products Installer from VB to Lazarus to get the same look and feel on Linux once we have tested and debugged it for Linux.
 
(PS: The only thing I mis in Linux is AOE II Conquerers - to slow under Wine, sniff, sniff, ...)
Title: RE: Re: RE: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: antonio on August 28, 2007, 10:57:06 pm
I would also say that I never heard about an open source project that has refused improvements. Delphi users should think about this.

Lazarus already is a professional tool for daily use for several Linux users.

Vincent, modestness is good, but open source is going to mainstream! For me, and others, this is already a reality. If you compare Lazarus with Delphi, it is OK, but with Turbo Delphi.... Once one has known Lazarus, he does not want to use Kylix or Turbo Delphi anymore.
Title: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: henrytj on August 30, 2007, 05:21:56 pm
Quote from: "Vincent"

Can you give an example? Of an open source project that disapeared because they developers stopped developing because it didn't bring in enough money?


This is obviously a trick question. But I am sure that there are plenty of open source projects (of which there must be thousands) where people stopped doing development on them.

edit
I would hate to see an open source version of my favorite programming language to fail.
Title: Re: RE: Re: RE: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazaru
Post by: henrytj on August 30, 2007, 05:42:44 pm
Quote from: "antonio"
This market share is valid only for USA, or USA and Western Europe. It is not so outside this region. Linux is growing.

Come to Lazarus.


Out of curiosity, what are the global market share numbers?
Title: Re: RE: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: henrytj on August 30, 2007, 06:02:45 pm
Quote from: "Vincent"
Quote from: "henrytj"
Quote from: "Vincent"



I just did a search on OS market shares. Here is one link.

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=2

Between Windows and Mac they have 98%+ of the OS market share. Linux has less than 1%.


Except that Mac OS X is a unix variant. But the figures are convincing. If want to make a commercially viable IDE, I should focus on windows and then on Mac OS X. Borland (and now CodeGear) take the right part of the pie. Lazarus / FPC doesn't have to make commercially sound plans and can opt for the commercially less attractive linux side. The win32 part of Lazarus merely a nice side effect, (OK, this is a hyperbool).



Yes, the current Mac OS is "based" on Unix. And a BIG Bravo!!! to Mac for fixing Unix's case sensitivity.  I think Unix's case sensitivity was one of the biggest blunders in computer science.  I would actually consider a Unix-like OS that fixed the case sensitivity and used real word for commands instead of (awk, grep, apropos, etc.) That is what has held back Unix the most and they don't seem to comprehend that.

I have no love for MS or Windows, but as long as Unix treats common users with contempt (and, yes they do) then it doesn't deserve more than the fringe user base it has now. At least MS and Apple do research on how people work best. Unix doesn't care and takes an arrogant cult/tribal attitude about it.

I support plenty other open source projects like FireFox, Thunderbird, Open Office, and so on. I have even been a vol. firefighter for about 15 years and a vol. EMT for 6 of those. Money is of little importance to me, but attitude is.
Title: RE: Re: RE: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: antonio on August 30, 2007, 08:06:47 pm
Quote from: "henrytj"
Quote from: "antonio"
This market share is valid only for USA, or USA and Western Europe. It is not so outside this region. Linux is growing.

Come to Lazarus.


Out of curiosity, what are the global market share numbers?


It's simply if Linux grows 50 or 100 per cent on a year, this does not appear on statistics. Outside that region, Linux is at least 10 times more popular.

Lazarus will not disappear.

And you can be sure that Borland's people know this forum.

Where Delphi is popular, so is Lazarus. What moves most people away from Lazarus are the bugs on Windows IDE. Among people who download Lazarus for Windows, 50% don't want to use it. They have a bad first impression. Some of them probably use Lazarus later.

Quote from: "Vincent"
I don't think FPC/Lazarus is ever going to be the top development environment. It just does a good job, but that is not what sells or what people want.

I am not going to tell you next year is the year of the Lazarus break through. It should be good enough for you now and if it is not, then don't use it.


I mean people learning Pascal throught Lazarus instead of Delphi, for example. This is not so far. FPC already is a great success on it, now there is a free Pascal compiler.

And Linux Online  calls Lazarus "a killer app",  http://www.linux.org/apps/reviews/lazarus.html
Title: with free turbo delphi out there, why lazarus?
Post by: tatamata on September 28, 2007, 04:08:37 pm
Hello, guys.
I meat Lazarus first time in 2005, while searching for a free/open-source alternative for MS Access. In that moment I had no idea about neither Delphi neither object pascal.
My interest for programming came unexpectedly from my need to solve some data-intensive and boring trending of data in pharmaceutical industry. I felt uncomfortable with Excel sheets and time-wasting dealing with data. Therefore I decided to learn something about databases. In that moment I was a complete "tabula rasa" for programming :).
I started learning MS Access untill I found myself completely consumed by it. It was great, the whole new horizon of possibilities came into my mind! But, after some  time I found myself stucked in Microsoft arrogant imperium and decided to try to find some open-source/free alternative, preferrably cross-platform.
I would never say it would be so hard to find decent alternative to MS Access. Whatever people could say, Access is really powerfull, and the fastest tool for creating database applications in the world....
My search leaded me from OpenOffice Base to Java Eclipse and NetBeans, from Python Boa Constructor to .NET and Mono's MonoDevelop. Also I was experimenting several months with a very interesting .NET language called Boo. I also tried many obscure projects and some nice, but limited products such as Knoda and Kexi. All of these languages/RADs dissapointed me a lot. Either they are to buggy or miss true data-aware components, or they have slow development progress or are too massive messy beasts hard to learn and understand. For example Java RAD tools drive me crazy with it's hell of multiple dependancies and incompatibilities... People suggested me to abandon desktop RADs and move to Web programming, especially PHP. But I never liked web applications, they always seemed to me so ugly and user-unfriendly that I just couldn't digest it.
In the same time I tried Lazarus and considered Lazarus to be very, very interesting in its philosophy, nice and compact, but to buggy and unstable for anything serious regarding databases...
I continued working with MS Access, but caming back to Lazarus web site every several weeks to see what's going on. Also, I started to read Delphi books meantime....
Finally, Lazarus version 0.9.22 appeared! On my surprise, Lazarus+ZeosLib+PostgreSQL+Firebird worked flawlessly. Nice and powerfull GUI, lot of components, stable and reliable! The progress in these two years was amazing! My applause to all people that contributed these improvements.
I was fascinated and decided to start intensive Pascal/Delphi/Lazarus learning curve. And the best way to learn something is to mix theory with practise. Therefore, now I read Delphi books and in paralel I write my Firebird/Lazarus application for production-manufacturing planning. In fact, I'm trying to rewrite my previously made Access application into Lazarus/Firebird. So far, I am very, very content. I'm so happy that I finally can replace Access with something else. I like this freedom and I think that Lazarus is now my definite choice and in following months all my efforts will be to learn everything about Lazarus and object Pascal.
Lazarus has a lot to offer to hobbiests like me, much more than any other open-source RAD tools, especially when talking about working with databases (which is my primary interest). According to the continous progress I predict that in two or three years it will be true alternative to any commercial RAD. It is already possible to write small commercial applications right now! But, contrary to many other open-source projects, most people have never heard of Lazarus. For example, most people here developing in Delphi have never heard that any other object Pascal exists out there. Isn't it strange? Everybody knows for Eclipse, NetBeans, Gambas or OpenOffice, but only few realize existance of Lazarus...
We need to spread word about Lazarus and to motivate people to join Lazarus comunity. Those who can develop Lazarus, let them develop, those who can not, let them spread word and test Lazarus for bugs.
Vincent, you are wrong, Lazarus is not and can not be only the metter of those few that actually develop Lazarus, but also all those "stupid" hobbiest that have found Lazarus to be only free/open-source alternative to Microsoft. Delphi is definitely not...
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