We are starting to use Lazarus at my work!

[440bx]

It's a bit surprising that some people believe that C# is a good choice.   

C# requires a multi-gigabyte library of code that is very comprehensive but also of questionable quality (lots of quantity though for those who like quantity over quality), produces code that is, more often than not, on the slow side, i.e, clunky and "elastic" (unless you run the thing on a very fast machine), imposes limitations on the programmer on how memory is managed because you can't "offend" its garbage collector, you cannot use the Windows API as you need or want to because doing so would would offend its garbage collector or violate assumptions made by .net.  To put a cherry on top of all that junk, .net often will _impose_ restrictions on your code in the name of "security".  By the way, that's just a few of the "great features" you get with C# and its ball and chain .net.

If there wasn't a very large corporation backing it, it is unlikely that huge pile of binary junk would be used by any significant number of programmers.   

While not problem-free, FPC and Lazarus are, by ANY measure a better choice than C#. 

Yes, the FPC project has its problems, clearly demonstrated by a 5 year delay between releases but, at least decent software can be produced with it. 

Definition of "decent software": doesn't require gigabytes upon gigabytes of junk in order to be usable, doesn't impose limits on how you can use services/APIs offered by the O/S, doesn't produce substandard executables that are slow and clunky.

But if you need to produce under-performing eye candy with a poorly performing user interface with checkboxes here and there along with pretty bitmaps, it's might be a good choice for that.  Use C# and Python as your daily tools and proclaim yourself to be a "programmer". 

[AmatCoder]

Lazarus can be great for small and simple applications but as they grow in complexity it is less reliable than some alternatives (sadly!).

https://github.com/tomboy-notes/tomboy-ng
Definitely not a big project but at 30K lines, 41 units, its sure not "small and simple". Compiles, out of the box for Linux, Windows and MacOS, crude web interface, syncs between them all.

Davo

I didn't say that writing a large application with Lazarus is impossible.

I say that is just less convenient and/or less productive than other alternatives.

Have you written a large application with C# & Windows Forms?
Or C++ & Qt?

So you can compare reliably...

But note: this is normal. Microsoft / Qt Group have dozens of well-paid developers working full-time. Lazarus has a few working in their free time.

The effort is very commendable, but reality is what it is.

[440bx]

Have you written a large application with C# & Windows Forms?

The effort is very commendable, but reality is what it is.

Visual Studio is a large application reportedly written in C#.  Visual Studio has quite a few nice features but, in spite of that, it isn't what I consider a good program and, the reason it isn't is directly related to C# itself and .net.

As you said, it's a commendable effort but, reality is what it is and, Visual Studio is a binary monument to the sad implementation of good features.

Lazarus and FPC are _much_ better choices to produce software (disclaimer: when the objective is producing good software that is a pleasure to use.)

[ALLIGATOR]

It depends on the programmer's skills, not the language - the architecture, patterns, etc. Many large programs are written in Pascal, including the Lazarus IDE itself. The code for many of them is open source and available for review

I confirm every word - it depends on the skills of the programmer and the team

[ALLIGATOR]

C#

I don't know why, but I always get the feeling that applications on the .Net platform are slow

I have to work with SIEMENS TIAPortal, which is a terribly slow, glitchy, memory-hogging piece of junk...
(Although you can find examples of such software for any language, here I blame the .Net platform and Microsoft for the problems (for actively promoting it and raising too many expectations, and apparently for the incompetent developers who fell for MS's promises and did not properly test the performance of their architectural solutions)

PS: Yes, of course, I gave an artificial example, but I don't usually work with anything else that's slow, so this is my subjective example

PS2: By the way, I also find Delphi12.1 to be slower and more inconvenient than Lazarus🥰

I hope my posts don't start a new holy war 😅

[JuhaManninen]

Or C++ & Qt?

C++ is a horrible language. Object Pascal used in FPC and Delphi has a big advantage here.
C++ is a proof of how new and juvenile the whole science of programming is. It is less than 100 years.
How advanced was agriculture 100 years after its invention? Or metallurgy some 5000 years ago, right after it was invented?
C++ is an unfortunate combination of coincidences and language evolution gone wrong. In the far future historians will shake their heads and smile when looking at C++ code, the same way we look at some old mechanical machine prototypes.

OK, Qt has good design. I wish it was made with a better language.

[gidesa]

If there wasn't a very large corporation backing it, it is unlikely that huge pile of binary junk would be used by any significant number of programmers.   

C# is  a copy of Java. Java is much more promoted, especially around 2000, also from important technical "influencer". And was (is?) taught in universities.
Another huge and clunky software, but widely adopted for enterprise applications.
So I would not blame directly C#, that is only child of Java world.

[Vincek]

We need to start programming Windows software at my work and Lazarus seems most suitable for the tasks. Before Lazarus we tested Visual Studio and other similar tools ...

Hi, I think it’s great that you are starting to use Lazarus, and I believe it’s a very good decision. Especially for desktop apps, I don’t think there is anything better than Lazarus (or Delphi).

This is my first post on the forum, so I would also like to thank all the contributors to the project who made the Lazarus and FPC projects possible. Thanks!

I would like to address the concern some users have that the Pascal language is not widely adopted and is relatively unknown. I don’t think that’s a real issue, even if it were true.

For example, the Windows OS is committed to backward compatibility. My desktop apps that were written in Delphi 7, 25 years ago, still work today on modern Windows 11. I’m quite sure this will remain the case in the future as well, at least on Windows.

I would be more concerned about the future of my apps that depend on shared runtime libraries (like the Java VM). Whether such apps will still be able to run in 10 years without changes is something I doubt.

One realistic problem you could encounter is a situation where you need to use a specific library that isn’t written in Pascal — but such issues can arise with any language. Most of the time you can build then a small Interface app (with socket communication or something) to the other App.

Throughout the years (25 years of professional programming), I have also realized the power of compiled languages (as Pascal is) compared to scripting languages. The compilation step is beneficial because it helps detect typos and various other kinds of mistakes early on—issues that would take much longer to identify in a loosely typed scripting language.

A strongly typed, compiled language is also much better at providing correct context help (identifier completion). I’m also quite surprised that modern Pascal has some unique features that even C# lacks, such as declaring an array’s length based on the size of an enum. Likewise, C++ doesn’t have a direct equivalent to the try...finally concept, among other things.

And then there’s the IDE. Up until a few years ago, I was still working professionally with Visual Studio (and used Lazarus for my side projects), and I was not impressed when comparing it to Lazarus (or even to modern Delphi 11+ to some extent). In particular, the Lazarus IDE feels much more responsive than the other tools I’ve worked with, and it includes many "small" features - such as "numbered bookmarks" - that Visual Studio lacks out of the box.

I wish you good progress with your Lazarus projects!

[LV]

Free Pascal is very capable. 🏋️ I used Lazarus and FPC to solve CFD problems at work, such as simulating the Richtmyer-Meshkov instability using fast multithreaded code with FPC 3.2.2. 😀

[BlueIcaro]

If there wasn't a very large corporation backing it, it is unlikely that huge pile of binary junk would be used by any significant number of programmers.   

C# is  a copy of Java. Java is much more promoted, especially around 2000, also from important technical "influencer". And was (is?) taught in universities.
Another huge and clunky software, but widely adopted for enterprise applications.
So I would not blame directly C#, that is only child of Java world.

One of the main developers of the C# programming language were Anders Hejlsberg.  Before works in Turbo Pascal and Delphi. Then worked for microsoft
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Hejlsberg

For me, C# it's a bad copy of Delphi. The only reason, which C# is more popular than Delphi, is  "A powerful gentleman is Mr. Money "

/BlueIcaro

[dbannon]

https://github.com/tomboy-notes/tomboy-ng

Have you written a large application with C# & Windows Forms?
Or C++ & Qt?
So you can compare reliably...

No, I have not, myself, coded other big projects. My career moved away from coding to management and systems work. But I did get involved with the original Tomboy project. It was written in Mono, an open source clone of C#. And it was in the process of being abandoned, the Mac version had been unusable for some time, the Windows users where finding its run time dependencies just too hard.

I looked around for a real cross platform solution, open source, and found FPC/Lazarus. I have not regretted that decision.

I have no problem scaling it up and any reliability issues could be traced to my mistakes without exception. Wayland is the next challenge. I do find it annoying that there are so many compatibility issue on Linux (my favorite platform) and so few on Windows and Mac !

Davo

[JuhaManninen]

Wayland is the next challenge. I do find it annoying that there are so many compatibility issue on Linux (my favorite platform) and so few on Windows and Mac !

Linux is the kernel and appears to be well maintained.
The situation with X11 and Wayland is peculiar. It seems the X11 project maintainers actively try to kill their project. At the same time Wayland is being pushed by main Linux distros, especially those funded by big companies.
Some projects like Gnome and also X11 have become political. They refuse a patch if its author does not follow their political (woke) agenda. This is a scary direction.
X11 was forked (XLibre) by its active contributor. The fork was publicly criticized a lot.
This is a "battle test" or "acid test" for the GPL. IMO the politically infiltrated projects deserve to be forked. Their political decisions inevitably impair their quality in the long run. Users can vote by abandoning them and moving to a fork.

This is a rather new phenomenon. What happened?
Those same political agendas are pushed in all western society with lots of money. Have the same sponsors infiltrated those FOSS SW projects by paying money? I don't know. The maintainers may also truly believe in those agendas and repeat them for free. Useful idiots so to speak.

FPC project has serious management issues but fortunately they are not political. Kudos for that!

[440bx]

They refuse a patch if its author does not follow their political (woke) agenda.

if that's true, good for them. "woke": the word used by people who are bothered by decency.

[Martin_fr]

@all: Please regard the forum rules and leave out political debate. Thanks.

[JuhaManninen]

@all: Please regard the forum rules and leave out political debate. Thanks.

I don't plan to debate politics. I just told a fact about the policies of some FOSS projects.
It is really striking and a new phenomenon in the open source world. You can find info in the net.
Whatever political view a project chooses and then lets it affect decisions about technical issues and contributor acceptance, it will impair the project technically. We can only imagine what the motivation behind that is.