Putting aside the security issues, the problem with running, eg, Lazarus, as root is Lazarus is constantly building new files and replacing existing ones (source code, object files, ppu, binaries...). If it does that as root, the new files are owned (and protected) by root. An ordinary user cannot remove or update them.
Lazarus makes no allowances for this situation, it assumes its files are its files. Next time you run Lazarus, it fails to update the files it expects to be able to update, it does not test to see if it has permission, why should it ? So, it crashes, or maybe worse, continues to use the old file. In either case, because Lazarus, quite sensibly does not expect anything this silly to happen, it cannot warn or advise the user. In the end, they will probably have to remove and reinstall Lazarus. Something Windows users are used to, not so *nix users. But some package managers refuse to remove files, in root space, not owned by root. So, even thats hard.
But yes, the security concerns are a factor too. In this brave new world we live in, everyone, even VisualLab, have a responsibility to deny the bad guys every, and I mean every, access point.
In terms of spells, rubbish. Most distros these days have sudo, Rasberry Pi OS, does not even require a root password, just the 'sudo '. The important thing here is that you are running your application as root, not the edit, compile process, not the project and IDE settings.
And, again, I question even the need to run the developing app as root, *nix has an easy to understand access controls. If you cannot handle them, you probably do believe in spells !
Davo
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