i gave up

[jl]

FPC has a lot of potential.  Let's admit it, Windows is dying, especially on the server platform.  With virtual machines, no one can say linux is harder to maintain than windows.  If the administrator screws up, he can restore a backup.

That's what I do with my Debian vm, i make a copy of it before installing Lazarus.  If the installation screws up, i just restore the backup.  And since I have not figured out how to "upgrade Lazarus" without spoiling it, if I need to upgrade, I just revert to the backup.

VMs makes Linux installation, backup and recovery a breeze.

However, not everyone codes in C, Java is not productive and is getting out of fashion.  Everyone hates JRE.  FPC comes in nicely.  

On Client side, everyone is moving to web-based, and FPC has fcl-web, or is it fpweb?

As for .NET, there are tons of programmers in India doing that work. 

[Leledumbo]

As I remember, if I press F1 in Delphi, the pretty help system appears where I can search for anything, also for "convert string to integer".

Also, if I put a cursor on a function and press F1, the help on this function appears.

Such a thing already exists. And it's on the way to be the default.

[eny]

I am aware of the existing tutorial but let me give an example.  I wanted to do a quick Fibonacci series - type in the length of the series into an edit box, do a loop of that size each time calculating the next element of the series and popping it into a list box.  Simple enough.  Could I find the routine to covert a string into an integer?  I could not.  Well, not until I had gone through the PDFs searching for it. 

There is always room for improvement and the search engine of the Wiki is, well, below par.
However back in the old days people learnt stuff (like programming) by reading books and searching in manuals. So it's a good idea to al least once read all the manuals (or at least look at the tables of contens to get an idea what is in the manuals).

[Cran0g]

That's just what I'm - slowly! - doing.  But how do I know I have all the right docs?  That's the sort of thing I mean.  I'll get there.

[eny]

That's just what I'm - slowly! - doing. 

Very good 

But how do I know I have all the right docs?  That's the sort of thing I mean.  I'll get there.

That's a good point.
There is no definitive set of documents that describes all FPC/Lazarus functionality (at least I haven't found it). And there is no set of documents that describes how to use all library classes, procedures and functions. This is where the Wiki can help.
I try to answer questions with Wiki links as much as possible. That serves 2 purposes:
1) the text in the Wiki is reviewed (I read it or someone else reads it)
2) the TS can read it and if it is not answering the question, the Wiki text can be improved.

[Martin_fr]

Help and navigation (like OpenDeclaration) are not so good like in Delphi and Eclipse (I use it for Java development), but it has many advantages too, e.g., it works under Linux and this is very important for me.

I'd like to here an example where  "open declaration" is worse than in Delphi?
Last time I heard, Delphi was worse. Delphi could not do such navigation while debugging, while Lazarus can....

I'd much rather have debug info selected while I'm developing but when I make the release, I don't want it in there.  If this was done as default no-one would be asking why the executables are so large.

If it was off by default, all the people who complain nowadays about the big exe, would start complaining that the debugger does not work.
With any serious project, debugging will be needed before release. It's only logical to have it on.


As for help: anyone can improve it. The wiki is public. Lazarus has a build in editor for FPDoc, and any improvements can be send to the team, and be included in future releases...

[mvampire]

I'd like to here an example where  "open declaration" is worse than in Delphi?

I'm sorry, I can't make an example, I'm not using Delphi last time...
Let's say that I mean only help is better in Delphi, and both Help and OpenDeclaration - in Eclipse.

Concerning OpenDeclaration in comparison with Eclipse - when I press Ctrl and click on procedure in Lazarus, the declaration in the head of Unit opens, and to go to procedure itself, I need to scroll down throw all other procedures, which is not very useful (IMHO).

Eclipse help is also very good (e.g., the one (Javadoc) which appears on MouseOver).

And many other things... (e.g., it's very complicated for me to manage, and copy+rename projects in Lazarus using IDE SaveAs.. and other dialogs)

But, as I have said, for me it's not so important. I understand that it's an open source project and there are no companies like Sun (was) and IBM which can invest money for years in Lazarus like they did for Eclipse. Personally, I can't provide support for Lazarus more than answering on the forum, 5-10 euro donation per year + submitting bugs, so I use it as is and have totally nothing to claim. I think that it's a great project with a good future. All my comments are just wishes, not claims.
Also, as myself, I'm only making a console programs for my private needs, the biggest one is 3-4000 strings to calculate some statistics for my study. So I think, that IDE is not so important for me now, like for other people.
And Eclipse is slow buggy staff, which I dislike 99%. Eclipse is created for Java, not for FreePascal, so it's not correct to compare these IDE's.

However, if Lazarus will have the same modern help/test/navigation systems like Eclipse has, it would be awesome.

[eny]

Concerning OpenDeclaration in comparison with Eclipse - when I press Ctrl and click on procedure in Lazarus, the declaration in the head of Unit opens, and to go to procedure itself, I need to scroll down throw all other procedures, which is not very useful (IMHO).

Ctrl-Shift-CursorDown?

[Martin_fr]

I'd like to here an example where  "open declaration" is worse than in Delphi?

Concerning OpenDeclaration in comparison with Eclipse - when I press Ctrl and click on procedure in Lazarus, the declaration in the head of Unit opens, and to go to procedure itself, I need to scroll down throw all other procedures, which is not very useful (IMHO).

Concerning this, you may want to watch this: http://bugs.freepascal.org/view.php?id=11030

It's on the todo. Though personally I like the current behavior. Using the keyboard it is quick to do the extra step in navigation.
But having jumped to the declaration, I have the choice:
- I can continue to the implementation

Ctrl-Shift-CursorDown?

- I can look for an overridden method in the parent class

Eclipse help is also very good (e.g., the one (Javadoc) which appears on MouseOver).

The IDE shows FPDoc entries in the hint. FPDoc-Editor is in the "View" menu

The IDE also shows comments from the source code in the hint:
http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Lazarus_IDE_Tools#Hints_from_comments
You may want to read the entire page. You probably find a lot of useful features there.


-Edit:-
Another nice overview of some of the things Lazarus can do: http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/New_IDE_features_since

[Paulinho Cé]

...executable giant...

There were few forum threads how to solve this... Did you read them?

Yes, I read them but I could not run the strip nor the UPX.
Could you show me how to use them?

Thanks

[Paulinho Cé]

As for "External SigSegV"
This can be caused by Comodo firewall and Bitdefender.

Both of them appear to cripple gdb. This does apply to every open source project that involves gdb.

That's true. It affects Code::Blocks too in C++ development.

I do not use firewall, only windows and Nod32 antivirus .

Thanks

[Paulinho Cé]

Totally agree. 
We really need a short tutorial to let people know how to build an application in Lararus.

Totally agree with u !!!

Thanks

[Ask]

I'd like to here an example where  "open declaration" is worse than in Delphi?

Concerning OpenDeclaration in comparison with Eclipse - when I press Ctrl and click on procedure in Lazarus, the declaration in the head of Unit opens, and to go to procedure itself, I need to scroll down throw all other procedures, which is not very useful (IMHO).

Concerning this, you may want to watch this: http://bugs.freepascal.org/view.php?id=11030

See also http://bugs.freepascal.org/view.php?id=13245

[garlar27]

...executable giant...

There were few forum threads how to solve this... Did you read them?

Yes, I read them but I could not run the strip nor the UPX.
Could you show me how to use them?

Thanks

   It's quite simple to get rid off of debug information only by going to the "Project Options" under "Project" menu (or press Ctrl+Shift+F11).

   Look at "Linker" options and uncheck the item "Visualize line numbers ....... (-gl)" and accept changes. Once you compile your project, the compiler won't include all the debugging information in the binary.

   At this point you will have a smaller binary than before, but, not as small as the Delphi's one because Delphi relies on Windows APIs (most of the code is in Windows API) and Lazarus don't (that's the cross-platform price).
   Anyway its not a bad thing a 4MB (AFAIR) binary for a hello world versus an 8MB for a program with more than 30 thousand lines of code (this is a modest estimation of what I think it has, the compile window says 133199 lines).
   I think 4 MB it's not much, but you can make it smaller although I never tried. Take a look at the FAQ and search in the forum to know what you can do to strip from binary.

[JD]

Totally agree.
We really need a short tutorial to let people know how to build an application in Lararus.

Totally agree with u !!!

Thanks

Well one such "basic" tutorial in video form can be found on Youtube here

http://www.youtube.com/user/SchoolFreeware

The author has two video series: Free Pascal Tutorials & Pascal Helper Series but he's using the Lazarus IDE. I believe he has about 40 videos for beginners. That should get you up & running.  

Note that you have to look for the series because he has videos on other programming languages such as C++, QBasic etc.

JD