[Lazarus] learning advice for FPC/Lazarus noob

[Gary Randall]

Hi Gour,

I've been programming for 53 years, learning everything from machine and 
assembler languages to various OOPs.  When Delphi first came out I used 
it for four or five years and liked it. After retiring I was hired to 
write a program to run on multiple platforms.  I settled on FPC and 
elected to use the Lazarus GUI before trying anything else in order to 
learn Lazarus's limitations.  I purchased the "Lazarus, the Complete 
Guide" and "Learn to Program Using Pascal" package.  I refer to the 
guide when exploring methods, but find myself reaching most often for 
Howard Page-Smith's "Learn to Program Using Lazarus".  It has excellent 
examples and got me going in a hurry.  Like any language where you can 
get to the guts of things, the learning curve can be long, maybe even 
continuous.  The forum is also an excellent resource when you need a 
question answered.  I do Google searches starting with "Pascal Lazarus" 
and usually end up finding the answer in the forum.  I got "The Blaise 
Pascal Magazine" going back a bunch of issues as a bonus when I ordered 
the package and found many excellent articles in them.

Gary

On 8/3/2015 3:58 AM, Gour wrote:
> Hello,
>
> after (too) much time exploring/evaluating different languages, I’ve
> finally decided to use use FPC/Lazarus to write open-source
> multi-platform desktop GUI app…
>
> It would be kind of semi-hobby project and the reason why I took so long
> to decide about Pascal is that I was using it long ago (>20yrs) while
> studying software engineering on the University (we had to write some
> compiler using TP, so I thought that some better language did
> evolve. :-)
>
> Of course, there are some interesting *languages*, but I simply do not
> buy what web+JS is the only way to go to write app these days, and
> that’s where FPC/Lazarus are shining very brightly!!
>
> However, in the meantime, programming did not become my bread’n’butter,
> so although programming is not strange/new thing to me, I need some
> refreshment and looking for adequate literature/docs to equip myself to
> use FPC/Lazarus for my GUI project…
>
> I there is a ’bundle’
> http://www.blaisepascal.eu/index.php?actie=./subscribers/lazarusbookinfoEnglish
> offering to buy Lazarus Complete Guide and get Learn to Program Using
> Lazarus as downloadable PDF, so I wonder if it is good-enough for
> learning FPC and start with Lazarus?
>
> I’m aware there are lot of online docs available, but I am simply
> accustomed to use/hold concrete books (if possible) and reduce my time
> of starring at computer screens to save my eyes a bit.
>
> Another option which I’ve found is: “Getting Started with Lazarus and
> Free Pascal: A beginners and intermediate guide to Free Pascal using
> Lazarus IDE” (http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1507632525/ref=rdr_ext_tmb) but
> it seems it’s more into web development than writign desktop GUI apps?
>
> Besides that, one Delphi/Lazarus user suggested to get some of the
> “Marco Cantu's mastering.. series of older versions”, but not having
> *any* experience with neither Delphi nor FPC/Lazarus, I’m looking for
> some helpful hints which path to go?
>
>
> Sincerely,
> Gour
>
> p.s. I sent the same message from Gmane-subscribed group, but never
> received its authorization message and it seems that the message went to
> /dev/null, so, please, if anyone can check whether the information at
> http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.ide.lazarus.general is correct since the
> “requires subscription to mailing list to post” status usually means it
> should be possible to post for subscribed users, while my experience is
> more like “posting isn't allowed”?
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.lazarus-ide.org/pipermail/lazarus/attachments/20150803/650491cc/attachment-0003.html>