>Lazarus and Eclipse are compared as two IDEs, and why the most bloated
>one seem to be the most successful too.
>In my view, this is due to a lack of marketing effort from the
>freepascal and lazarus project, and the "old school" image associated
>with Pascal in general. This is surely not helped by the web sites of
>both projects which are rather user unfriendly!
Here are some thoughts of mine.
Marketing
-------------
Let's look at Python - it's not exactly marketed. Well, google founders just
happened to
"fall for" the language a bit in college/university while they were getting
their feet
wet. They could have fallen for PHP or ruby, and that would be "their thing".
They just
happen to fall for python. So now that google uses it, it gets it's name around
a bit.
But you watch the next few months.. google has now forced (sorry, recommended I
mean)
people to use python for their Sitemaps Beta, if people want to generate
sitemaps that
comply to google's standards. This will market python.
Still, Python is not as popular as PHP at the moment. So how does PHP market
itself?
It's
-easy to download,
-it is easy to read the manual online.
-has "contributed notes" at the bottom of the PHP docs.. this is a huge plus.
-people advertise themselves as a "PHP programmer" at the bottom of their
email. No one
does this with Pascal.
Contributed notes
--------------------
There is nothing like "contributed notes" to be seen with Pascal documents.
People have to
tediously download and compile the documents with fpdoc, then send a patch, and
then wait
2-3 days for anything to happen. This needs to be changed. Compiling docs are
great for
the core of the documents, but additional comments need to be available from
the users
visiting the site in real time. I'm actually working on something called LufDoc
which
helps people contribute notes at the bottom of Pascal documentation.. whether
this is
accepted by the Pascal community is not my choice, just like acceptance of
Plugger is not
my choice, and acceptance for additional "contributed programs" section to the
FPC website
is not my choice. But the point is that we need to have more self serve on the
fly
documentation.. There are several times where I have seen a mistake in the
Pascal docs
that I want to fix immediately on site (or at least make a comment about it on
site).
More Marketing
-------------------
If you want to market Pascal don't expect the FPC devel team to do it.. expect
people like
business owners, developers, and website owners to do it. If people see seven
hundred
sites using CGI mailer scripts or forums written in Pascal that look cool, they
will say
"cool, was written in Pascal". If I go out with a brave heart and try to inject
Plugger
into a bunch of C++ applications, and people start seeing a bunch of C++
applications
using a plug in system designed in Pascal, they will say "cool, the plug in
system was
designed in Pascal, and it even works in the C++ app now". Injecting the Pascal
name into
existing C++ apps is one of my ideas.. and it only takes one man to do (but an
army would
be better). Writing something like PasWiki only takes one man to do (but an
army would be
better) I still see so many of you using PHP based web sites to market Pascal
as a good
development system. This ain't gonna help Pascal - that's clash. Instead of the
PHP
extension we need to see something like PSP or PPP or PGI.
Market Existing Programs
----------------------------
We also have to market existing applications out there that people don't know
were written
in Pascal. I market Total Commander in my emails sometimes (even though I'm in
no
affiliation) because I think it is a very strong application on the Windows
market. All
the users of total commander and any Pascal application should be posting
articles or
blogs on their websites saying "today I used an application written in Pascal
called Syn."
"Today I wrote a plug in for total commander, in Pascal. "You can write plug
in's for
total commander in C++ too, but obviously it's better if you know Pascal".
"Apache is
written in C so it must be cool" . "That Linux distribution has mainly Pascal
applications
and it's very fast compared to the Python based KDE distro.. interesting".
Create an army
of programmers working on a Linux distro that relies on plenty of Pascal
applications.
That is another idea of mine.
People generally don't do this.. they keep it a secret. That needs to be
changed.. people
need to start writing articles about the "Pascal programs they used today". On
windows, if
you don't know that your tool was created with Pascal, you can get a tool
called Stud_Pe
and the upx unpacker.
IDE For non-GUI devel
--------------------------
If you ripped out all the visual components in Lazarus it would still be a good
IDE.
Lazarus needs to be marketed then, not just for creating visual GUI
applications.. but for
custom programs too. Eclipse seems to be known by some as a good tool, but not
necessarily
emphasis on visual development. With Delphi, there is far too much emphasis on
visual
development, and people knock it as a visual basic rip off. I'd go as far as
having a
button in Lazarus to turn off the component palette. I never use the component
palette
when making CGI apps, so I don't need it visible. If Delphi had features that
allowed you
to create applications that weren't so TForm based (but still with RAD
capabilities, like
inserting snippets of text, etc) then a lot more people wouldn't knock it as a
VB clone.
(Maybe you know I'm working on Plugger for this reason - to help RAD
capabilities for non
visual apps - and maybe you know I'm trying hard to make RAD development for
Pascal Server
Pages integrated right into Lazarus IDE through plug-ins.)
Size issues
------------
Linux 1MB elfs may go unnoticed, but on Windows people are highly sensitive in
this area.
It is my advisory that if Lazarus wants to market itself, it has to solve the
1mb problem
(it doesn't matter what you think ethical priorities are, I know for a fact
this is one of
the biggest turn offs, and even if it's not so important to you, it is killing
bringing
more people in to use lazarus. Looks and size matter here). People will
consider lazarus a
toy until 1mb exe's are solved. People may use lazarus for serious CGI
development, or
serious low level Pascal development, or socket programming, but not for MS
Windows GUI
development until the 1mb issue is solved.
Application repository
-----------------------
We need a Pascal repository for all the applications written in Pascal. We have
a
Contributed Unit repository, but not a program repository. The repository needs
to be self
serve, just like PHP contributed notes are, and just like the contributed units
section at
FPC website is. For example, where is it known that Seksi Commander exists?
It's not even
on the Lazarus website.
Army of Pascal Users
------------------------
An "army of programmers" who agree on some general tactics, is needed. Maybe
we should
start an Army Of Pascal Users mailing list to discuss marketing and tactics.
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