Lazarus & FPC documentation

[Andrew1020]

Looking at the FPC & Lazarus documentation, it does show that it is extensive.  But it looks disordered. 

Just like I have suggested to the GNU Emacs Team to produce commercially available documentation on the Emacs system and all the programming language modes that can be used with it.  Comprehensive documentation on any topic would drive acceptance of a software system.

I believe the Lazarus team should also consider moving and merging the FPC IDE into the Lazarus IDE so that Lazarus will function like Embarcadero's Delphi 12 IDE and future versions.

[Martin_fr]

I believe the Lazarus team should also consider moving and merging the FPC IDE into the Lazarus IDE so that Lazarus will function like Embarcadero's Delphi 12 IDE and future versions.

I seem to be missing something about the above sentence. At least I can not make much sense of it.

With the "FPC IDE", do you mean the command line IDE "fp.exe" (or without .exe extension on Linux) that comes with the compiler itself?  If so, how does that have any connection to "Delphi 12" (which I am pretty sure is a WIN-GUI app, not command line)? If not, then what?


Also about "more like "Delphi 12"... Well, while I don't have it around for testing, I am sure it has a great lot of features and various differences to Lazarus and/or FPC. Different representation, differences in the Pascal language.
So it would really help if you pointed out exactly which of those.

Mind though, if it is about Pascal Language => there is more available in FPC 3.3.1. There are various discussions on that, to read up on the when and what (and what not).
In case it relates to any of them, it be better to join the existing threads on those topics.

If that "moving the fpc IDE into Lazarus" somehow means to build a release with 3.3.1, that has been ask before, and the answer was (and still is) that Lazarus releases will only be made with released fpc versions.

[PascalDragon]

Just like I have suggested to the GNU Emacs Team to produce commercially available documentation on the Emacs system and all the programming language modes that can be used with it.  Comprehensive documentation on any topic would drive acceptance of a software system.

You are aware that both FPC and Lazarus are driven by volunteers? We are already stretched thin as it is, there definitely won't be any commercial documentation made by us.

I believe the Lazarus team should also consider moving and merging the FPC IDE into the Lazarus IDE so that Lazarus will function like Embarcadero's Delphi 12 IDE and future versions.

No. The purpose of the text mode IDE is to be a low dependency IDE for systems and use cases when a full blown GUI isn't feasible or wanted. The text mode IDE and Lazarus are different by design.

[Martin_fr]

About the documentation, on the Lazarus site we have Don Siders, who dedicates a lot of time towards the documentation.

For all I can say, he will surely welcome any serious help offered. If you have concrete ideas, and if you are willing to spend your own time, writing help texts, then you should contact him.
- Discuss with him which style is acceptable.
- Our docs are FpDoc based. But FpDoc has the abilities to add "topics" (Articles on any subject, linked from other help items).


If you want  to contribute to the wiki => you are welcome.

As for help in "book form": Here too, anyone is welcome to write such a book.

Despite the point by PascalDragon, that the existing teams have little time already, the existing teams are software developers. So the skills in the teams are not the skills usually needed for writing "professional help/documentation books" (though of course I do not know to which extend individual team members may possess both sets of skills / Actually, some have done, see the bookstore).

There are also some free PDF books available.

But in the end, if more documentation (outside the FpDoc driven docs) is wanted, then it will have to come from contributors.

[Andrew1020]

Thanks all of you for your replies.  I now understand why fpc and lazarus are different by design and meant for different platforms. The Basic Pascal Tutorial was okay, but the OOP with Free Pascal and Lazarus was not - it would have to start from the beginning before programming with widgets was introduced. I would like to be able to use Lazarus for very simple CLI programs, but it seems to insert all the "$ additions" when I try to create a bare source file.  Once I am confident with simple source code, will I be able to go more into and use Lazarus further.  I have also requested at least one or two book publishers to print books on Lazarus such as Packt. I hope they can find the right authors and publish Object Pascal books using the Lazarus IDE that are helpful as tutorials and learning guides.

[marcov]

I use lazarus all the time. The only catch is that a "console program" and a "console application" are two different entries.

The "Console Application" entry of lazarus uses a TApplication like setup for Console applications.

To generate exes without the application framework use either "Simple Program" or "Program". The latter adds some stock mode directives.

I mostly use "Simple Program" and add my own directives since I prefer Delphi mode (IMHO Lazarus should have a global setting to generate Delphi mode units as much as possible).

[paule32]

can you give me the Contact Details of Don Siders ?

[marcov]

Look in the Documentation forum in the FPC part of the forum. Post or PM him there.

[paule32]

I can not private message him, so I would drop a Message there in the Hope he (donsiders) read it ...

Hello donsiders - you are Don Siders ?

I found you mentioned in the Lazarus Forum ...
And I was seeing that you take many Time efforts to documenting the FPC Project ...

I would ask you, if we can bring us together in write Documention ?
Because I had start a own Documentation Project, too.

The Goal is / was to translate the English Documentation to German for German speaking/writer/listener ...

It would be glad, if you can send a Feedback ...

[wp]

Hello donsiders - you are Don Siders ?

His user name is "dsiders". Send him a PM, use "dsiders" as recipient. Or find one of his forum posts, click on his name and then, at the left: "Send PM".

[paule32]

He block me of his PM List.
And my Post in the Translation Section of this Forum was cancel/remove.

So I assume, no Help for documenting FPC and Lazarus for German Users is not wanted ...

[Martin_fr]

And my Post in the Translation Section of this Forum was cancel/remove.

When did you make that past? I don't see any recent post in the deletion log (neither by your name, nor that board)

[paule32]

I drop a Message yesterday.
- tried per PM - fail
- tried per Post in the Translation Forum - yesterday, fail (cancel/remove)

I don't can find my Post that I drop - but I could read it yesterday evening - then today Morning - the Post fly away ...

To see, what I did (began) already, you can visit my GitHub Account Repro:
https://github.com/paule32/Free_Pascal_Compiler_Documentation

[marcov]

Yesterday afternoon there was a time the forum was badly reachable (the usual AI scrapers I assume). Maybe try again.

[Martin_fr]

- tried per Post in the Translation Forum - yesterday, fail (cancel/remove)

I don't can find my Post that I drop - but I could read it yesterday evening - then today Morning - the Post fly away ...

I have no idea what may have happened to that post.
I am fairly sure it wasn't intentionally deleted by a moderator. If it was it would automatically be logged, and the log does not show any post in that board having been removed.

In any case, that would have had to be a Moderator. Don isn't in that group. So he could not have removed it (if he thought he had a reason). And there also was no report by anyone to moderators for any post in that board.

I pinged the server admin, if he has any idea... Not sure if that will bring up anything.

In any case, since it wasn't moderated, you can try again.


I don't know about Don's personal settings for PM. So I don't know why you couldn't PM him. That isn't a matter of moderation or admin. So whatever settings he has, it is nothing that I would have anything to do with (unless he says, that you should be able, and there is a question if there is an error on the server...)

In any case, I have pinged him directly now (email), to draw his attention to this thread. Not sure when he will have that. But if he is interested I would think that he will drop a note here. (just give him a little time).