[Lazarus] Components dcu?

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

On 28/08/12 16:45, Chavoux Luyt wrote:
> I read through the wiki, but it seems like they only discuss the
> possibilities. Nothing has been done yet? Do we actually know how Delphi
> did it (on the wiki it looks like we are still guessing)?

It's not about "how Delphi did it" or "can FPC implement it", it is 
simply about Delphi doesn't overcome the same problem FPC faces. Delphi 
simply have the luck of the draw that there is no daily compiler or VCL 
snapshots, no builds between releases etc. So coding components for 
Delphi is easy, because you only target one compiler/vcl version per year.

With FPC and Lazarus, there is continuous development and most 
developers will use Lazarus directly from the code repositories. So even 
if FPC had "delphi package" support, with each new code revision those 
"delphi packages" would be broken, because the FPC (fixes branch) or 
Lazarus (fixes branch) will not be the same as the release branch.

Recompiling Lazarus IDE from a clean directory structure may take around 
a minute to complete. After that, there already exists *.ppu (compiled 
units) files, so only changed units are recompiled and the executable 
linked. So such secondary compiles take mere seconds - probably just as 
long as it would have taken to compile and install similar components in 
the Delphi IDE.


> every-time (and if I made a stuff-up my whole IDE will not be
> dysfunctional).

That's not the end of the world, but I always make a backup of the 
lazarus executable before I do a rebuild. If the rebuild went horribly 
wrong for some reason, I simply revert my changes and copy back the old 
executable.

Regards,
   - Graeme -