Lazarus 1.6 / FreePascal 3.0

Hi Ansgar:

I'll start by saying I know virtually nothing about Delphi and especially the current state of Delphi (i.e. under Embarcadero), but it always seemed at least a little under duress, especially since Borland's demise.

While you are fond of pointing out Heidi works well (so far) under WINE, I think most (including you) would agree a native application for Linux would likely be superior.

To this end, I would like to point out I heard Lazarus recently released version 1.6 which is based on FreePascal 3.0.0

Rumor has it that Delphi projects port across very easily and cleanly. Indeed, on the Lazarus forum I saw one developer say he ported a 250k line project from Delphi without needing to change a thing (I don't recall what Delphi version he was on, however. Anyway, if this were the case, perhaps a native binary of Heidi for Linux would be more easily achievable?

Maybe it is time for another quick look (the last apparent significant discussion about this was 2 years ago . . .)?

http://www.lazarus-ide.org/

Thanks for the consideration.

ix magazine recently released an article about Eclipse alternatives, which included Lazarus with the FreePascal compiler. I find that all quite exciting, while I recall I did a testwise import of the HeidiSQL sources and failed greatly with various errors. But that's quite some time ago, so I'm also curious what the current Lazarus is able to do.

I'm just nearly sure that all the registry stuff I have in HeidiSQL quite surely won't work on Linux. It was a shitty decision to store all settings in the Windows registry, and it is not something I can turn to using files instead very easily.

Well, curiosity will help here. Perhaps I can achieve something useful with Lazarus.

I just made a quick test, with the current Lazarus release. Started the Delphi project to Lazarus project converter and loaded heidisql.dpr. It's frustrating. It can't find the most important "Forms" unit, same with "Graphics" and some other unit dependencies.

Hi Ansgar:

Thanks for your interest and effort.

Without any other criticism of HeidiSQL, I agree

It was a shitty decision to store all settings in the Windows registry, and it is not something I can turn to using files instead very easily.

In my opinion, the system registry is the worst thing MS ever foisted on the IT community. To me, it seems virtually all about protecting proprietary software through obfuscation of program information (such as license registration). [It is a little ironic you chose to use it given Heidi is free, but then that is what MS wants you to do (and virtually every other Windows developer does it), so it is certainly understandable.]

Of course, there are theoretical benefits to having a single, system-wide repository of program information, but the drawbacks are much more significant. Predominantly these drawbacks are:

1. being able to bork the entire system by messing up one file (the registry)
2. not being able to fix a borked system easily (vs. *nix, where one can just edit some text files to get things right again)
3. hindered program platform portability (as you have discovered)

RE:

It can't find the most important "Forms" unit, same with "Graphics" and some other unit dependencies.

I really don't know either Delphi or Lazarus, but it seems Lazarus uses QT or GTK (see: http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Screenshots ) for presentation of visual elements. Perhaps this is why you can not find the forms or graphics unit with which you are familiar in Delphi?

My guess is that your program logic would come across easily but possibly the forms would have to be re-written entirely? I hope that is not the case as the hurdle would probably be enormous.

Maybe the Lazarus community would be interested in helping. I would think they would love being able to claim a 1st rate, complex application like Heidi is portable to Lazarus, especially if it is "easy" in any way.

It might be worth a quick question or two on their forums?

Best of luck to you and continued thanks for the development of HeidiSQL!

"In my opinion, the system registry is the worst thing MS ever foisted on the IT community. "

You obviously have forgotten Microsoft BobⓇ.

I too would strongly encourage making a native port to 'nix (Linux, Mac OS/X, and the rest of the family) using QT. I suspect that you will be able to round up plenty of testers for the various desktop environments/distributions.

Nice screenies from Bob! :)

You obviously have forgotten Microsoft BobⓇ.

That's funny ;-)

No, I remember Bob quite well. I also remember lots of people asking me to uninstall "Clippy," "Rover" (the dog) and the other "helpful" technologies similar to Bob in versions of MS Office (and Windows 95) released shortly after Bob.

At least installing Bob was voluntary and reversible ... the Windows registry is not.