[Lazarus] Size of binaries etc.

[Hans-Peter Diettrich]

Mark Morgan Lloyd schrieb:
> Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote:
>> Mark Morgan Lloyd schrieb:
>>
>>> But the bottom line is that the target audience is IBM mainframe 
>>> hackers, used to handcrafting assembler and punching EBCDIC with 
>>> their teeth. I don't want them to say "Binaries bigger than 1Mb? NBG".
>>
>> I wonder how mainframe applications can make use of a GUI at all?
> 
>  From my limited experience, either all or none :-) To a much greater 
> extent than unix-based systems they rely on having smart terminals to do 
> all the interactive stuff, and while waiting for something to happen sit 
> there in a halted state (on a test system here, I see a something happen 
> every couple of minutes spinning for a couple of thousand cycles).

That's why I ask - the client-server protocol doesn't deserve a GUI on 
the mainframe. I also assume that the protocol restricts the graphics 
capabilities, if there are any.

> There's not very much difference between a 3270 terminal (and its 
> equivalents from other manufacturers) and a classic web page with 
> embedded forms: stuff gets sent to the terminal, the user fills fields 
> in, changed areas get sent back. All of the frontend stuff can be 
> wrapped in the same sort of GUI as a web browser gets, in fact IBM seem 
> to have moved seamlessly to browsers rather than their classic terminals.

IMO every client type requires a different protocol, and specific 
preparation of the data to be sent to the terminals. Doesn't this 
require an dedicated widgetset in the LCL, for every client type?

This in turn would require to compile a Lazarus application separately, 
for all supported client types (widgetsets). Otherwise another layer 
between the (then abstract) LCL components and their transfer to 
specific client types had to be implemented in the LCL.

DoDi