I give up. No IDEs can satisfy me.

[Martin_fr]

Lets leave the history of humanity to a forum more suited, please.

It is neither Pascal related, nor a matter for/about this forum.

[MarkMLl]

But this is probably their standard IDE modified to support Rust code. I don't think an IDE for Rust written in Rust would be created so quickly (there would be a lot of talk about it). Besides, it's commercial (yes, there is a simple version available for free as an incentive). But anyway, the Rust community has no influence on the development and functionality of this tool. Nevertheless, it's better than nothing for a start.

And their standard IDE- Eclipse or whatever- wouldn't have a form designer. I'd add that Lotus (later IBM) Notes had a very good run, and I suspect (cautiously, and would welcome correction) that having a properly integrated development environment was a big part of that. I don't know what Oracle has these days, but would suspect that having gained the Enterprise part of Netscape via Sun that they've picked up and run with that ball.

Again, I'd say that Eclipse being based on Java doesn't appear to hamper its adoption by devotees of other languages (including, notably, Ada). And Emacs being based on Lisp didn't appear to harm it. I see no good reason why a RAD IDE like Lazarus should be criticised for its implementation language, particularly if it added substantial value (i.e. a form designer etc.) when compared with other available editors.

But attempts to promote Lazarus (as a specific example) on its merits would be a non-starter if even one member of the community was allowed to get away with criticising potential or novice users because of their language preferences, or merely because zhe disliked the cut of their jib.

MarkMLl

[Khrys]

Lazarus is a wonderful tool, no doubt. But people are quick to judge, and especially the first impression matters a lot.
Unfortunately, some defaults in a fresh/first-time Lazarus installation do appear anachronistic to newcomers. From my own experience:

• The floating/undocked windows. This is a matter of taste, and statistically floating window layouts are simply uncommon. This is immediately off-putting to many newcomers.
• The default color themes. Light themes have become unpopular, and the default dark themes aren't particularly aesthetically pleasing (case in point:  Twilight; permutations of $FF and $00 in RGB - like #FF0000 red, #00FFFF cyan - don't constitute a well-rounded color palette).
• The default IDE theme itself. With the currently ongoing obsession about dark themes, a low-friction way of switching to one is essential. On Windows, having to compile a non-OPM package is anything but low-friction to a newcomer.
• The caret-past-EOL behaviour. My honest first impression was that this must be a bug in one of the most basic text editor interactions. Like with the window layout, it's a choice that simply isn't popular right now.
• The sparse line numbers. Again, not the popular option.

Yes, these are complaints about superficial things. Yes, all these complaints can be resolved. But the end result stays the same - the first impression of a default Lazarus installation evokes feelings of datedness. Changing some default options in the installer and perhaps adding more built-in color themes could alleviate some of this.
The first screenshot is from a fresh installation; including default window positioning and sizing. The second screenshot is from a customized installation. Which one looks more in line with a "modern" look-and-feel to you?

[440bx]

Personally, I believe that too many programmers are giving way too much importance to looks and way to little to function and _useful_ features (not piles of useless ones... which has become typical.)

Personally, I dislike docked windows.  It leads to a very inefficient use of screen space.  Your screenshot shows you get 52 lines in your editor window, AFAIC, that's a deal breaker (I got 50 lines back in the days of MS-DOS).  I get 78 lines on a 1920x1200 monitor (a bit "taller" than the standard 1080 but not much.)

As far as caret-past-eol, I don't recall what the default behavior is but, any editor that does not allow caret-past-eol is just another notepad, utterly useless AFAIC.

As far as colors go, I think that's much too personal to say anything about them.  I prefer dark (solid black background... gives high contrast = less visual effort) and contributed my color scheme (because it was requested)

I like the sparse line numbers, less clutter.  I don't like clutter.  I couldn't code 5 minutes with the settings you have.  I'm not saying they are wrong but they are a universe apart from what I am comfortable with. 

For the most part I use two windows: the editor window (often two of them) and the watches window.  The rest of the windows lazarus offers get a second or two of attention every once in a while (such as the messages window.)

Lazarus is _functional_, that's what an IDE should be.

[wp]

• The caret-past-EOL behaviour. My honest first impression was that this must be a bug in one of the most basic text editor interactions. Like with the window layout, it's a choice that simply isn't popular right now.

Caret past-EOL is perfect to left-align comments at the end of lines. I would not want to miss it.

[Khrys]

Personally, I believe that too many programmers are giving way too much importance to looks and way to little to function and _useful_ features (not piles of useless ones... which has become typical.)
[...]
Lazarus is _functional_, that's what an IDE should be.

I don't disagree with you; what I meant to do was supplement the original post with specific examples of subjective criticism:

if you have specific deficiencies to mention and how they can be overcome, that could be useful and, in addition, they might be implemented.

We could spend all day debating personal preferences, but that's beside the point (as I inferred it) of the topic: Lazarus somehow feels "outdated" to newcomers. How can we address this?
The things I pointed out are deviations of Lazarus from current mainstream IDEs. Deviations that, although superficial and unimportant, make no good first impression on novices who are used to mainstream tools.

[440bx]

The things I pointed out are deviations of Lazarus from current mainstream IDEs. Deviations that, although superficial and unimportant, make no good first impression on novices who are used to mainstream tools.

I believe you have a point there.  People get used to certain things and if they don't see those things, it may leave them with a bad impression.

That said, I don't think that's a good reason to change Lazarus. I understand you're not implying that... I just want to make that point.

[kupferstecher]

Personally I prefere the floating layout over the docked one because of better usage of space. I like to use large fonts and often work on the 14" laptop, so I want the code editor to go from the very top to bottom. In other IDEs I find my self always dragging the separators up and down and left and right to see anything.

That said I think the Lazarus layout could be improved by docking some of the things. What I would like to have is one main window with (reduced) menue bar, source editor and message area. In the left side there could be the project inspector. This window I'd adjust to 9/10th of the screen width, so other windows are accessible like in the floating layout. So this main window would contain everything you need for pure coding. Then the forms in seperate windows, also a window with OI and there could be a tab in the OI window with the component palette. In the beginning I really liked that the forms come in own windows as it completely looks like in the application. Later it didn't matter anymore for me.

I think such compromise between docked and floating could give a better first impression and also benefit the regular users. But again it somehow is a matter of taste.

[marcov]

We could spend all day debating personal preferences, but that's beside the point (as I inferred it) of the topic: Lazarus somehow feels "outdated" to newcomers. How can we address this?

Maybe first ask the question should we address this? Will it ever be good enough to change that opinion?

[cdbc]

Hi

Maybe first ask the question should we address this?

No! Lazarus is just fine as it is.
Just my 2 cents
Regards Benny

[marcov]

Hi

Maybe first ask the question should we address this?

No! Lazarus is just fine as it is.
Just my 2 cents
Regards Benny

I'm not saying that. There is certainly room for improvement (and IMHO anchordocking is not bad, I use it always, so an question on first startup to auto enable it on would be good IMHO).

But I don't believe some half assed accelerated trajectory to modernise will achieve the goals that green newcomers suddenly will revise their opinion. It will just move on to the next detail.

[cdbc]

Hi
I hear you Marco and agree with you, apart from the docked 'thingy', there I'm with 440bx...
Your notion on the question 'bout it, at first startup, I second. +1
Regards Benny

[MarkMLl]

Maybe first ask the question should we address this? Will it ever be good enough to change that opinion?

The "elephant in the room" here is Android: whether or not anybody will ever attempt to use it for development the fact is that it (and its lack of multiple windows) is extremely influential on the expectations of more than half the people on the planet.

I for one consider this to be regrettable, in particular the loss of a menu structure with sensible naming and pop-up hints is a very big retrograde step. But it's still something we have to live with, and we need to recognise that while it might be possible to introduce some ideas on their unarguable merits (e.g. menus) there are others which being arguable are less easy to promote (the choice between having windows invisible because they've been overlapped and having panes invisible because they've been shrunk to an edge).

MarkMLl

[Joanna]

We could spend all day debating personal preferences, but that's beside the point (as I inferred it) of the topic: Lazarus somehow feels "outdated" to newcomers. How can we address this?

Maybe first ask the question should we address this? Will it ever be good enough to change that opinion?

Definitely should not try to change the Lazarus ide for the benefit of complaining strangers with unknown intentions.

This reminds me of online gaming when they tried to imitate other games in hopes of getting more customers and only succeeded in wrecking the game for the people using it and making them all quit..

Lazarus is fine the way it is for the most part. Although I did encounter a doozy of a bug today in Lazarus ide

Code: Pascal  [Select][+][-]

1.  FUNCTION TBASIC_COL_FILTER.SQL_SEGMENT( CONST COLUMN_NAME: SHORTSTRING):SHORTSTRING;
2.  BEGIN // The procedure becomes empty if I press enter here and it takes two undo to restore it.
3.  CASE TABLES_INFO.GET_INFO(TABLENAME)
4. END;
5.  

If I press return after the begin, the entire procedure becomes empty and takes two undo to restore it,
TABLES_INFO.GET_INFO Is a function that returns a class. I’ve never seen such a bug before... why is it doing that?

[Martin_fr]

You probably have some form of  smart indent in the codetools options enabled.
In that case codetools attempts to figure out what amount of indent you may want when you press return (e.g. add some indent after a begin).

Anyway, it is a bug, and should be reported on the bug tracker (if it isn't there yet). With appropriate info of the involved required settings to reproduce.