[Lazarus] A broken dummy package was created

[Roland Turcan]

Martin wrote:
> Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:
>> 2009/10/1 Martin <lazarus at mfriebe.de>:
>>  
>>> I still thin you exaggerate "Debugging from inside the IDE is near
>>> impossible".  => it is not very comfortable though.
>>>     
>>
>> Well, then you clearly know which loops to jump through in Lazarus.
>> Just about everything I try and debug in Lazarus doesn't work - and I
>> try and use Lazarus debugging like I used Delphi or Kylix debugging.
>>   
> Well then help extending the wiki page with the loops....
> 
> Like adding tips, how to use (and where not to use) value inspection via 
> hint. (personally I never used this, so I couldn't run into this issue. 
> I dislike having to re-locacte the mouse after every single-step, rather 
> using the watches window.
> But a matter of taste, so yes for you it is less comfortable.
> 
> Viewing record structures with a hint is still possible, just hover over 
> the actual name of the variable (the record, not the field), and you see 
> *all* values. Usability depends on the size of the record...
> 
> Arrays are still an issue. I admit this. With fpc trunc you can get 
> along, if and only if (to many if) you have declared a named type. And 
> if (!) you add the extra pointer dereference.
> 
> So are nested procedures, and local variables in the outer scope. Only 
> way is to set the current stackframe in the stack window.
> 
> 
> What where your other issues?

FWIW: it is hard for others to be able to ply in the same field when others are 
creating the field and possibly leaving a few hints here and there as to the 
methods of how to use said playing field... surely there is some mechanism that 
can be or already is included such that some "real layman's" documentation can 
be pulled out and compiled into a local help resource as well as being included 
into an online and even wiki help resource format ???

yes, as an old coder who has played with several addon utils that can/will parse 
certain comment formats of "how to use", i fully understand then necessity of 
the developers of FPC, Lazarus and all additional libraries to write these 
documentations as they go but this and similar discussions have already appeared 
and the basic consensus is that while it may be done, if the code to do it isn't 
there, then oh well, we have to deal with what is there...

FWIW2: i agree completely and fully understand all of the above as well as the 
3rd party coder's stances... the major thing i see is that FPC/Lazarus could 
easily become the largest coding platform if more assistance was available from 
the built in help stuffs... that's first and foremost... secondaryily would be 
close help and support on a "live" basis but it is also seen that this would 
detract from the developers of the compilers, debuggers, and RAD interfaces and 
their work on implementing the necessary capabilities, bug fixes and features... 
somewhere in here, some group of "layman translators" need be done such that the 
implementator's descriptions of how things really work can be written in 
layman's terms for the "casual" pascal coder without the need for them to have 
an active connection to pull the necessary help info and/or decoding of the ways 
in which to use the available code functions and routines...

i really do hope that this makes sense and doesn't come off as insulting, 
belittling or antagonistic to those in the know... remember, eventually, these 
3rd party "weekend coders" are/may be a large percentage of the users of this 
pascal environment... yes, i'd like to see this capability come much sooner than 
so far later... these days in time, i'm one of the former than the latter which 
is a major difference than how it was for me some 10+ years ago...