[Lazarus] Is Lazarus project in a downward spiral?

[Alexander Grau]

Hello,

I'm taking the chance here to confirm that we can exactly agree on 
Daithi Haxton's posting. We had gone a similar way (had the same 
decision for a development language and tools) for our cross-platform 
data recovery software (http://grauonline.de/slides/lazarus.html). 
Before we made our decision for Lazarus, we developed cross-platform 
software in Java as well (with similar issues as in the posting before). 
Then we gave a good known wxWidgets-company the chance to develop a 
prototype using wxWidgets/C++. They needed 4 months. Finally, we found 
Lazarus and tried a prototype on our own. We needed 4 days and it worked 
even better. Lazarus is in fact the ONLY set of tools where you can 
develop native cross platform apps with the same RAD-IDE on all 
platforms using a fast compile-cycle. Guys, you really made something 
unique! Don't give it up. Sure, there are bugs - but the are the same 
amount in other frameworks, development tools etc.
We already spend money on having FreePascal/Lazarus developers helping 
us to fix bugs. And we are considering spending more money into Lazarus 
in this way.

Best regards
Alexander Grau

Grau GbR
Hardware & Software Solutions
Huellhorst, Germany

Development company for LC Technology, Intl. (www.lc-tech.com)




Daithi Haxton schrieb:
> Hi!
> I've not posted here before, but I've been reading this list for about 
> six months, and I've gotta weigh in on this one.
>
> By way of introduction, I'm the Sr. Software Engineer/Team Lead for a 
> major consumer electronics company in the US. We've been using C++ 
> Builder for several years as our PC compiler of choice. It's allowed 
> us to develop robust applications in very short time spans with very 
> limited resources.
>
> However, it is (of course) Windows only. Last June the word came down 
> that the market was changing, something we all knew, and that Mac's 
> were gaining a significant enough share of the consumer market to 
> warrant our support. I was charged with finding development tools that 
> would allow us to move our existing programs to the Mac in the 
> quickest and most reliable fashion.
>
> My initial impulse was Java, but there were lots of issues, the 
> biggest one being a native look and feel on Windows. Most of our PC 
> products involve communication over USB, and that gets problematic 
> with Java as well - we really need native code compilation. Deployment 
> was also an issue. Ditto for Python, and the other platforms we looked 
> at. Then I stumbled across Lazarus/FPC.
>
> Native compilation - check. Native look and feel - check. Similar 
> object structure to our existing code base - check. After about a 
> month of having the team play around with the tool, we decided to go 
> forward. Our entire PC software suite ( ~60 applications) is being 
> moved to Lazarus, with the first release scheduled for mid May, on a 
> new (for us) device category. The rest will be rolled out as updates 
> warrant - all new development is being done in Lazarus.
>
> A colleague moved a rather complex software update tool from C++ 
> Builder to Lazarus in 4 days - and we now have a Mac version as well. 
> That, my friends, is nothing short of incredible.
>
> Following this "downward spiral" discussion has led me to believe that 
> perhaps the Lazarus community doesn't really understand what it's 
> managed to do here. AFAIK Lazarus is the ONLY tool in it's class that 
> allows this kind of development - one code base, multiple targets, all 
> native look and feel, all native code. That's just mind boggling.
>
> My boss was initially very skeptical - "Pascal - that old fuddy-duddy 
> language from the 80's?" He's a believer now, and happily relearning 
> Pascal so he can throw in the odd module himself now and again. We're 
> even looking as Lazarus for some of our device code (as some of our 
> newer devices are Linux driven). There's a better than even chance 
> that we'll officially get in touch with the developers at some point 
> in the near future and offer resources to help move the project ahead. 
> We were especially intrigued by the discussion of a multi-platform 
> setup tool - right now we use Inno Setup on Windows and the awful 
> Package Manager thing on Macs...
>
> In summary, Lazarus is a fantastic product. It's usable TODAY for 
> commercial development. We've found it (the IDE) more stable on 
> Windows than it's commercial counterparts. RAD Studio will generally 
> lock at least one of our development machines once a day - so far 
> we've had only one issue with Lazarus, and that was on a Mac (and I 
> reported the bug to Mantis, and it was fixed in three days - try that 
> with you-know-who ....). These discussions are great, but please don't 
> lose sight of what you've already got - a world class compiler and 
> development tool that's being used right now to solve serious real 
> world problems.
>
> Thanks,
> Dave Haxton
> Sr. Software Engineer
> Audiovox Electronics Corp.
> Carmel,IN
> USA
>
>
> -- 
> _______________________________________________
> Lazarus mailing list
> Lazarus at lists.lazarus.freepascal.org
> http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
>