Domain: freepascal.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to freepascal.org.
Comments · 218
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Open Source KylixI'm having a hard time understanding all the excitement regarding Kylix, considering that it is a closed-source, proprietary development tool that will cost an arm and a leg. I've used several Borland development tools for Dos/Win and I've been impressed by them in the past, but I wouldn't consider going out and spending several hundred (or thousand? how much is Kylix anyway?) dollars on a development tool for linux when there are so many free, open source alternatives.
If there are Pascal programmers out there who want to target Linux, I suggest you check out Free Pascal. If you must have a nice, user friendly GUI rather than a straight command line compiler, then I suggest you check out Lazarus, which is an open source version of Delphi for Linux. It's still in the early stages of development, but it is coming along nicely and shows huge potential, IMO.
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Re:Danger of Kylix
Since the Free Pascal Compiler can compile (most) Delphi code, you should be able to do all your design etc in Kylix and then compile the result with FPC. Unless some critical information necessary to compile is stored in the project files, that is (but I don't think that's the case).
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Support Free Pascal!
It's a GPL'd Pascal compiler for Linux x86 (and Win32 and OS/2 and...) that is very compatible with Borland Pascal and Delphi - but it's command line only at the moment.
A frontend for visual development is being created with the Lazarus project.
Visit www.freepascal.org and support the developers! They're trying to port FP to other platforms than x86 to make a tool that is not only available on the strategically important systems... Not that this is wrong, Borland has to make money of it! -
Re: "how about an open-source version?" freepascal
Free Pascal. I wrote a cheesy command-line util in Delphi and ported it to Linux using the FPC.
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Re:The VCL is largeIt depends. The FPU code FPC generates is much (and I really mean *much*) faster than Delphi's (or almost anything else out there, seriously!).
"Normal" code (integer calculations etc.) is less efficient in general, but it's getting better. If you want to see for yourself, get the development compiler with new optimizations enabled from the development page (the "optcomplinux.tar.gz" archive). Note that you have to install it over a release version. Compile your code with -OG3p3 and/or -OG3p3r.
What FPC still lacks is an instruction scheduler, but with the current crop of processors with huge reordering buffers and tons of renaming registers this doesn't matter anymore as much as in the days of the Pentium (on the 80x86 front at least).
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Re:Lazarus
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Re:Lazarus
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Re:The VCL is large... but the work of porting it has already begun. The Free Pascal Compiler comes standard with most non-graphical VCL components (called the FCL: Free Component Library).
The Kassandra Component Library and the Lazarus Component Library are both works in progress to create the graphical components (as much toolkit independent as possible, for example KCL both works with GTK and native Win32).
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Re:The VCL is large... but the work of porting it has already begun. The Free Pascal Compiler comes standard with most non-graphical VCL components (called the FCL: Free Component Library).
The Kassandra Component Library and the Lazarus Component Library are both works in progress to create the graphical components (as much toolkit independent as possible, for example KCL both works with GTK and native Win32).
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Re:The VCL is large... but the work of porting it has already begun. The Free Pascal Compiler comes standard with most non-graphical VCL components (called the FCL: Free Component Library).
The Kassandra Component Library and the Lazarus Component Library are both works in progress to create the graphical components (as much toolkit independent as possible, for example KCL both works with GTK and native Win32).
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Lazarus
As several people have already asked about Delphi for Linux, I'd like to give a pointer to Lazarus. It's a project that is aiming to create a free Delphi for Linux. Medigo was another project but it apparently died while Lazarus is moving faster than ever.
Lazarus uses the Free Pascal Compiler which is already a great pascal compiler. It's semanticly compatible with Turbo Pascal 7.0 but it also contains a lot of Delphi extenstions like long strings. The Lazarus team is writing all the class libraries and an editor.
At the moment lots of classes are done but they could use some help with remaining classes and the editor. Check out their home page and have a look.
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Re:Delphi
You are almost right about Delphi. Delphi is not a language. Delphi is an IDE for Object Pascal, Borland's mutilated child of Pascal. There are open-source Pascal environments that support many of Delphi's features.
GNU pascal starts from a POSIX standard pascal base and tacks on some OO features from Borland Pascal, the ancestor of Object Pascal.
free pascal aims to be a replacement for Object Pascal, supporting exceptions, Objects, ansistrings, etc. When I have had to use Delphi at work, I have often used FreePascal at home to hammer out the algorithm. Delphi is a nice tool for slapping together a UI, but it really gets in the way for designing deeply involved programs.
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Re:Pascal/Delphi on Linux
96/97 is somewhat early...
FreePascal has came a long way and is now pretty comparable
to Delphi, and besides: it's FREE!
Just take a look. -
Re:Pascal/Delphi on Linux96/97 is somewhat early...
FreePascal has came a long way and is now pretty comparable
to Delphi, and besides: it's FREE!
Just take a look. -
Re:VCL for Linux
Have a look at the Free Component Library of the Free Pascal Compiler. Also at Kassandra and Lazarus
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Re:VCL for Linux
Have a look at the Free Component Library of the Free Pascal Compiler. Also at Kassandra and Lazarus
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Re:VCL for Linux
Have a look at the Free Component Library of the Free Pascal Compiler. Also at Kassandra and Lazarus
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Re:This is good news
Check out Free Pascal or GNU Pascal or Lazarus and see if any of them might work for you.