[Re: [lazarus] A Little Cleanup]

[Michal Bukovjan]

michael at tfdec1.fys.kuleuven.ac.be wrote:

> Experience with the compiler shows that this is what people expect.
> 90% of all users (if not more) says 'Hey, I have some TP or Delphi 
> code, why won't it compile with FPC ?'
> 
> With the advent of 'Delphi for Linux' this situation is NOT going to 
> improve; in fact I expect it to worsen a lot.
> 
> You may or may not like it; but this is a fact. So I would nevertheless 
> opt for a large degree of delphi compatibility; definitely where the 
> basic components are concerned, and low-level stuff as hints;

I vote for this, too.
 
> In the worst case, you just declare 2 properties; 'hint' and 'tip' they're
> technically only aliases, so your code doesn't get heavier.

I think it does, because the component interface grows, if only a little. This
is especially inconvenient in base (root) classes such as TControl, because
all descendants then have this, too.

However, Delphi design is not flawless (although its design flaws tend to be
minor, just like this Hint<->Tooltip property), and once we have a chance to
build things up again, with little backward compatibility concerns, we should
make the things right as much as we can.

Delphi was not designed as mutliplatform, multi-control-set-aware anyway.

> 
> Don't think that I want you to make an exact Delphi clone; 
> I'm just sharing my experiences here.
> 
> On the other hand; you will need to make a dfm2lfm tool anyway for the
> very same reasons; you could make that tool 'property - aware' in the
> sense that it could make a translation of well-known Delphi properties
> to lazarus properties.

And this is exactly the piece which would glue Delphi (with its flaws) and
Lazarus (no flaws :-)) the least painful way.

Michal Bukovjan


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