[lazarus]

[Jeff Wormsley]

On 6/29/99, at 2:43 AM, nico at clubdelphi.com wrote: 

>Hello,
>
>>Borland were to port Delphi to Linux, this is how they would be doing
>>it.
>
>And become incompatible with its own Windows stuff?

They would -have- to be incompatible with the Windows stuff just to be able to release it.  They can't rewrite the entire Windows API, and neither can we.  Cross platform programs are possible, but not when you get down to the lower levels.  For instance, Delphi doesn't have native serial port components.  You must use WinAPI calls like CreateFile, SetCommTimeouts, etc. to use a serial port.  Do you want to write the code to duplicate that functionality in Linux?  Ok, how about Mapi, or the Media player?  Yeah, a lot of the GUI will be multiplatform, which is good.  The guts will still have a large number of {$IFDEF WIN32} wincode {$ELSE} linuxcode {$ENDIF} areas.  To my mind, that is the single reason Borland hasn't seriously considered Delphi for Linux.  They know their customers would be very upset if they couldn't just recompile their Delphi apps, and they know it is far more work than they can afford to do.

Jeff.