[Lazarus] Lazarus (UTF8) and Windows: SysToUTF8, UTF8ToSys... Is there a better solution?

[Marco van de Voort]

On Fri, Dec 27, 2013 at 11:07:02PM +0000, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:
> > Just look on e.g. the forums. All people are asking about Delphi packages.
> 
> And once those Delphi packages are ported to Free Pascal, nobody needs
> Delphi any more. ;-)

Somehow there is still more Delphi use than Lazarus, so I'll bounce back
the "statistics" request.
 
> > Point is if you make conversion harder PEOPLE WILL NOT EVEN TRY!
> 
> Converting to Free Pascal and Lazarus will *always* be easier that
> rewriting everything in C# or Java - no matter how many
> incompatibilities Free Pascal might have with Delphi. The language still
> stays a lot more similar than the alternative. Yet, looking at the
> current employment market, it seems most companies opted to rewrite
> there Delphi projects in C# and Java - so they took the even harder
> route! Why? Probably due to more innovation happing in those other
> languages.

Not really, it is simply vendors pushing it, and bundling it with their
products, giving the SDKs preferential treatment. Therefore I don't really
think it is sane to compare FPC (or even Delphi) to C# and Java.

Worse, one of the motivators,  webframeworks often need support serverside,
and getting into the ISP's portfolios is hard, specially as native language.

But more importantly, however which way you turn it, there are still way
more new users coming from Delphi than from other sources (and then I'm
already generous, since those other sources also include other pascals).

And I see the numbers of _knowledgable_ users from "old" Delphi decreasing,
and the more able people also working with /new/ Delphi (and e.g.  testing
Lazarus to see if they can get a subset running on some other target).

This trend will only increase, and follows the same pattern as the TP to
Delphi migration years ago. Still a definitive switch is still some time
off, since most OSS projects and vendors still support D7. (support before
that is getting scarce).

But that is now. Decisions for FPC/Lazarus NG will only come to fruition in
2-3 years.  I think the D7 installed base will erode, but only very slowly. 
But the /activities/ of that installed base, and their investments in new
(D7 level) code will erode quicker.  Again this prediction is based on the
same pattern as with TP.