Free Pascal platform thoughts...

[WILL]

What platforms would you want Free Pascal to support? And if it supported this platform, would you use it? And what would you develop with it?

[cairnswm]

I would use Free Pascla if I felt it was as easy to use as Delphi. I've looked at Free Pascal and its IDE (Cant remember its name) and found it not as user friendly or easy to use as Delphi. I dont want to spend time working out how to use it - I want to install it onto my PC and use it just like I would with Delphi.

The problem with many projects done by hard-core programmers is that they forget that systems need to be as user friendly as possible before they will get used. When I write software for a user 60% of the time is spent making sure that it works the way they would want it to work and the rest is in delivering the required functionality.

I really really hope that in a year or two FreePascal will be usable in the way I want it to be. FreePascal is to me the only way the Pascal as a development language will survive in the long term. With C++ being cross platform it draws a lot of people to it. If pascal had an equivilent cross platform version it would compete on an even footing.

In my work environment we are moving toward a bus techonogy to share information. Along with this is the belief that we should be writing systems that can run on multiple platforms, Palm, PC, Linux, Pocket PC etc. I hope FreePascal can support this future view. If it can then pascal can survive.

[noeska]

free pascal should support:
-windows
-mac osx
-linux
-play station 2 (is opengl and openal available?)
-xbox (but is not that windows?)

And most importantly it should be able to cross compile!!!

OpenGL and OpenAL enabled games, demos

[cairnswm]

Well I know it works on the first 3 you have listed.

[lightning_]

FPC supports a lot of platforms but there's no problem in supporting new platforms, the problem is in supporting new processors.
Check the FPC site for more info.
FPC has the ability to CrossCompile and that makes it a strong compiler.
FPC supports much of Delphi's syntax but there are still some things to be done in this area.
Lazarus (the Delphi-like IDE) only runs on Win, Linux, *BSD and Mac OS X, but it might run on other *nix platforms.