Why isn't Lazarus / Free Pascal more popular?

[VisualLab]

I think there is an assumption about evolution that organisms will always improve but it’s really not that at all. Evolution is more like adaptation, survival of the fit. What qualifies as fit can change in unexpected ways.

It is exactly as you write. The assumption that organisms improve is not only naive, but also wrong from the point of view of biology. Simply, only those specimens that are best adapted to the conditions at a given moment survive. And these have offspring.

Junk software has already captivated much of the population who can’t stop staring at their screens and pay attention to what is happening in the world around them. They are stupefied.

As others have already written in this thread: it is not planned, it is a result of laziness and lack of knowledge.

[VisualLab]

The experiment of what will happen with software has not yet concluded...
Junk software has already captivated much of the population ...

I am not Nostradamus, but somehow I think that the next step will be to integrate computer hardware directly into the human brain and connect to a common database with AI.
So you and I will remember the current times with good nostalgia. And all current "junk software" will seem like children's toys. Although most current adepts of Pascal will probably not live to see it due to their age.

This is nonsense from cheap science fiction books and movies. People simply don't know enough about the brain. And no one wants to be a guinea pig (which doesn't surprise me). In addition, people need to master a much higher level of miniaturization of digital systems. And perhaps come up with an entirely new computer architecture. There are an incredible number of missing "building blocks".

[VisualLab]

Anyone foolish enough to get a computer in their brain will likely get all of their memories harvested by ai bots. Getting ddos attacks on brain would likely cause death.

If it were indeed possible (by some miracle) to create a brain-computer interface, then such a threat is quite real. And that would have to be dealt with first.

[VisualLab]

I am not Nostradamus, but somehow I think that the next step will be to integrate computer hardware directly into the human brain and connect to a common database with AI.
So you and I will remember the current times with good nostalgia. And all current "junk software" will seem like children's toys. Although most current adepts of Pascal will probably not live to see it due to their age.

Sounds like you'll like the ideas of Ray Kurtzweil, the singularity and the human-machine interface (HMI) to name a few. Personally, I don't see that as progress, nor do I think it will be beneficial for the human race in general. I lean more towards Isaac Asimov in that regard. Besides, I honestly think that AI will prove to be too resource hungry, and we'll have to temper our expectations of what we can get from it.

I would lean towards that too. Of greater benefit would be vision, hearing, speech, or limb implants.

[Lenny33]

Anyone foolish enough to get a computer in their brain will likely get all of their memories harvested by ai bots. Getting ddos attacks on brain would likely cause death.

Unfortunately, humanity will most likely have to integrate part of its brain with a shared knowledge database and with AI.
And there are many preconditions for this. One of them is that the amount of knowledge required for normal life activity is becoming more and more with each generation. If ~500 years ago it was enough to be able to count and read/write to be an educated person. But now you have to spend 11 years in school (in my childhood only 10 years), then 5-6 years in university, and then only at ~24 years to start moving up the career ladder.

For a woman's body in general, this is sometimes catastrophic. All doctors say that the biological time for a woman to conceive a healthy child is before the age of 25. What kind of study or career can she have then? Especially if she wants to have time to find a good husband and give birth to more than one child before 25.

Alexander the Great died at the age of ~32, having already conquered a large number of ancient states.
Jesus Christ died at the age of ~33, having become wise enough to change history for the next 2000 years and more.

And today's university graduate is just starting their career at 24-25 years old. And if person is a doctor, then he/she still has 1-2 more years of internship to study.

Anthropologists say that the human body in general is originally designed for an maximum 40 years.
It was rare to live past 30. Either tribal warfare, or disease, or being killed by an animal while hunting, and so on.
And this is how our ancestors lived for hundreds of centuries. An indirect confirmation of this is teeth which in many people begin to seriously deteriorate after 40 years even if they are well cared for.
And women can and physiologically should give birth right from the age of 13-14. What kind of long study can there be?

We can change this either genetically (live ~300 years) or we can integrate learning directly into the brain via implants.
And I suspect that implants will appear sooner than genetic longevity.

[440bx]

There is already some integration of man and machine.

There are artificial limbs that are controlled by the human brain.  There are reasonably good reasons to keep doing research in that area.

It really is only a matter of time before we figure out where to connect what in the brain and integrate brain controlled hardware into the human body.  Resistance is futile

There is an interesting experiment done in Germany a number of years ago where a group of people were fitted with a device that sent impulses to their brain depending on the strength and polarity of a magnetic field.  Essentially, it created a new "sense" in those people and they learned to rely on it for various purposes. 

Until somewhat recently, machines were "external augmentation" devices but, there is no rule stating they cannot become "internal augmentation" devices, yes, the Borg is a very real possibility.

[Lenny33]

Because I am aware of what I am doing. You know very well that consciousness in different living organisms (insects, vertebrates, and in particular many mammals, primates and finally humans) has different degrees. You've gone way overboard with simplifying this issue.

I didn't overdo or simplify anything.
I was just following the logic of your postulates about blind evolution.

And about "different living organisms". Maybe You just think (hope) that you understand everything that is going on around you only because your intelligence is much greater than that of an ant. And you think that your products of life activity and your conclusions and knowledge about the world are something absolutely different.
 
In some religions it is called pride (at meaning of arrogance).
Because there may be entities in the universe that are smarter than you are as much as you are smarter than an ant.
And for them your products of life activity (including computers and Pascal) are no more than an anthill for an ant.

And one more thing - you use the term: theory. In the world of science, a theory is a description of a phenomenon or process that has been thoroughly studied...

A theory is a set of views, perceptions, ideas aimed at interpreting and explaining a phenomenon.

I once studied physics (long ago at university) and even know quite well some alternative approaches to explain many phenomena.
For example, the Big Bang theory. It is a theory, not a hypothesis. But it is based on a very flimsy basis. The “evidence” is strained. And what's more, modern cosmological research shows that there's no way this kind of universe could have expanded from a single point.
This “theory” in 200 years (and maybe even in our lifetime) will be as ridiculous as the medieval theory of a flat earth standing on three elephants and a tortoise.

Just check what size the smallest transistor currently ...

Purely experimentally, transistors are already trying to be made in several atomic layers.
But in fact, the speeds and distances in modern processors are such that electrons fly out of the conductors at sharp turns.

It's hard to say what will happen in a few years. You can make assumptions, but they are always just speculation.

We are in this thread discussing why Pascal (Lazarus/Delphi) has fallen by the wayside despite all the efforts.
Do you have any "assumptions" or even "speculation" as to why?
Personally, the more I look at the remaining Pascal (Delphi/Lazarus) community, the sadder I get.
But I'm sure that you do not like my "speculation" about that (And I'm not talking about you).

[Joanna]

Quote from: Joanna from IRC on May 12, 2025, 11:33:32 pm
Junk software has already captivated much of the population who can’t stop staring at their screens and pay attention to what is happening in the world around them. They are stupefied.

As others have already written in this thread: it is not planned, it is a result of laziness and lack of knowledge.

On the contrary, all the addictive apps on computers are carefully crafted to engage and influence people using the help of psychologists. It’s really just an extension of what was done with the advertising industry. I’ve heard stories of owners of tech companies not letting their own children have access to their products.

[JD]

I’ve heard stories of owners of tech companies not letting their own children have access to their products.

It is a fact. The 2020 documentary, The Social Dilemma, alluded to this.

[JD]

So Why isn't Lazarus / Free Pascal more popular? Well, amongst other things, to recap:

a) it lacks BIG corporate support and interest. CIOs like corporate support because it gives them someone to call when things go wrong
b) Pascal is no longer taught in schools. It used to be the first OOP language taught in universities. It lost that title long ago. Java was the chosen one for a long time. Now the honour belongs to Python
c) The decline in the popularity of desktop applications in favour of Web/Mobile applications
d) The declining number of enterprise applications written in Pascal. It is almost impossible to find a new enterprise application project where the primary language is Pascal.

That is just to name a few. And one of the consequences of these things is the reduction in size of the Pascal community. The rise of AI also makes Pascal more unfashionable. It is unlikely to suggest Pascal as a solution to a problem.

All this is will not change soon. I've accepted it, and I'll live with it. I try to keep Pascal alive in the server space/backend because my Lazarus/FPC REST applications are small and rival what other languages can offer.

In any case, modern application development is often a mix and match of languages, frameworks and services. If I can fit Pascal somewhere in there, I'm happy. 

Resistance may be futile but, vive la résistance!!

[Joanna]

I’ve heard stories of owners of tech companies not letting their own children have access to their products.

It is a fact. THe 2020 documentary, The Social Dilemma, alluded to this.

Ah that’s where I heard that now I remember 

What you said above is true but it’s even worse. The People I talked to everyday about pascal seven years ago Have gone missing and are not being replaced by new people. These forums often have people being hostile to eachother which is  not going to attract new users. I will not mention his name but a well established forum member has told me he was thinking of switching to a language with a less toxic community. Another pascal programmer I know wants nothing to do with the forums because he saw hostile behavior of members towards other members many years ago.

Some people seem to be rather self centered and don’t understand why it’s wrong to deliberately insult other programmers who are asking for help with something.

I can’t be happy because if we stay on the current trajectory there will come a day when there is no place to go where people still use pascal. Who cares about corporate sponsorship?? We can still have a good community with real-time support  and a forum without people being mean if we want to. What is stopping us?

[Fibonacci]

Cool features could attract new users. FPC just follows Delphi, its like a slightly flawed, buggy, and incomplete Delphi, but free and open source.

People have contributed new features but they werent merged, like record composition or multiline strings. FPC doesnt even support inline var! The latest official release doesnt have anonymous functions.

Everything about FPC feels old. The wiki and docs look old, with ugly and small fonts.

Many users, especially newcomers, dont know about fpcupdeluxe, I feel sorry for them. This tool should be promoted on the official website. If this tool didnt exist, I dont think if I would use FPC. Before I knew about fpcupdeluxe if I wanted to install FPC and IDE, I just downloaded CodeTyphon - it was so much better, single window IDE and latest FPC. I only switched back when CodeTyphon decided to change the file extensions.

IMHO its time for FPC to stop chasing (and not being able to catch) Delphi. Go beyond.


PS. This forum is the only place on the entire internet where I use 110% zoom because the font is too small.

[Lenny33]

I try to keep Pascal alive in the server space/backend because my Lazarus/FPC REST applications are small and rival what other languages can offer.

I want to support you in that.
Lazarus is very suitable for such tasks.
Many people use mormot for that, but I personally didn't like its Variant approach and some other things.
So I wrote my own server on top of Synapse library and it works very fast, does not require installation of a managed environment (as for .NET Core), and in case of a commercial project is much more difficult to reverse-engineering.

[JD]

I will not mention his name but a well established forum member has told me he was thinking of switching to a language with a less toxic community. Another pascal programmer I know wants nothing to do with the forums because he saw hostile behavior of members towards other members many years ago.

Some people seem to be rather self centered and don’t understand why it’s wrong to deliberately insult other programmers who are asking for help with something.

Science and computing have always attracted people with above average intelligence and once you are in that kind of community, it is clear that sparks will fly. It was the same in the scientific debates of the previous centuries. It was not uncommon for scientists to be ridiculed if their peers did not appreciate certain ideas or the manner in which conclusions were reached. Reading about those scientists and their peer debates prepared and fascinated me.

And I once had a colleague whose immediate response to every question was, "That's obvious", and he irritated almost everyone, except me because I couldn't be bothered.  The scientific community is like that.

That said, I do agree that sometimes there is some name-calling and belittling on this forum. I would love it if we all had thick skins, but that is not the case. All we can do is ask others to tone it down because it can be a barrier to comprehension and the growth of this community.

[JD]

People have contributed new features but they werent merged, like record composition or multiline strings. FPC doesnt even support inline var! The latest official release doesnt have anonymous functions.

Yes, the missing anonymous functions matter bothered me a lot. After I started using them in Java and I saw Delphi introduce them, I don't know why FPC does not have them. I'm however happy with the progress FPC has made with Generics. I hope inline var will come soon.

Everything about FPC feels old. The wiki and docs look old, with ugly and small fonts.

Many users, especially newcomers, dont know about fpcupdeluxe, I feel sorry for them. This tool should be promoted on the official website. If this tool didnt exist, I dont think if I would use FPC. Before I knew about fpcupdeluxe if I wanted to install FPC and IDE, I just downloaded CodeTyphon - it was so much better, single window IDE and latest FPC. I only switched back when CodeTyphon decided to change the file extensions.

IMHO its time for FPC to stop chasing (and not being able to catch) Delphi. Go beyond.


PS. This forum is the only place on the entire internet where I use 110% zoom because the font is too small.

You need to post your response in the following thread also:
Practical Ways to Help Lazarus and Free Pascal Thrive?
https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,71081

I also made a request to change the Wiki documentation to something more modern. It may be harder to migrate this forum to something else. We had the same discussion on the Indy project forums on Embarcadero's website when it became difficult to access. I agree with you on making fpcupdeluxe more visible. As for CodeTyphon, I had a very minor difference of opinion with Sternas Stefanos, the project leader, and he left this forum. CodeTyphon is a great project, and he did a great job, but it is not for me. I didn't know they changed their file extensions. I wonder why?