What is the deal with PGD?

[technomage]

I agree we're not elitist here .

I think the merger with delphigamer has gone extemely well. Thanks for the efforts of the core PGD staff (WILL, savage, etc) we have a fansastic site for both begginers and the more "seasoned" members .

I also thing it's great to have options when it comes to choosing a pascal compiler. As savage will agree I'm a BIG delphi fan , that said I don't use Kylix for my cross platform work, I use Free Pascal, I think this is a great compiler and as far as I'm concerned is the best choise for cross platform development.

PS - It's good to see a nice lively thread, well done Traveler

[WILL]

You know it has been quite the popular thread. In fact people are starting to post more. I'm personally glad to see this. Please keep up the good job guys. Great effort.

I think that both beginner and experienced users here have a place to voice questions and the people to come and converse with. And the fact that beginners can get friendly advice is great too!

As for the whole Free Pascal and Delphi issue. From the time that I had created the Free Pascal forum my thinking was --well even before that!-- 'There is a ton of other Pascal compilers out there. Why do we only talk about Delphi C users talk about all different kinds of C compilers... Wouldn't it be cool if we talked about all these different Pascal compiers too?' and so my sort of 'mission' if you will, is to try to get notice to all these other great compilers too. Not just Delphi, which is a great and very well evolved compiler mind you.


[size=9px]Here they all are to the best of my knowlage:

:arrow: Free Pascal(opensource, best Delphi alternative yet, cross-platform)
:arrow: GNU Pascal(ok really just a frontend for gcc aka GNU C Compiler)
:arrow: PP Compiler(aka Palm and Pascal Compiler)
:arrow: Pocket Studio(for PalmOS, commercial)
:arrow: Chrome(really new for Visual studio or Linux command line compiler, .NET alternative, Mono capable, commercial)
:arrow: Virtual Pascal(recently canceled/abandoned)
:arrow: TMT Pascal(outdated, commcerial)
:arrow: HSPascal(Atari and Amiga platform with added PalmOS support by an ex-Turbo Pascal developer, commercial)
:arrow: Kylix(Delphi for Linux, commercial)
:arrow: MikroPascal(for PIC microcontrollers, commercial)[/size]

I promote Free Pascal not to replace Delphi, but to encourage more Free PAscqal users to make game OR to get mor Free PAscal users who make games, demos and other things of this nature to come here. For the longest time it's been only about Delphi on DGDev and DelphiGamer my intentions have been to push out in other directions not to drop Delphi by any means. This is my thinking on the issue.

[lief]

I see. But seriously though, we need to narrow down the community to an elite 7 or 8 developers who don't have to ask questions on boring stuff like programming or game development. If can achieve this, we can just have an offtopic thread and it will always be active. It will take time and effort however. Everyone using Delphi 7, Asphyre & FMOD - JOIN WITH ME IN THE REVOLUTION! ANYONE?! hello?

[Traveler]

We need to narrow down the community to an elite 7 or 8 developers who don't have to ask questions on boring stuff like programming or game development.

You mean you want a community of just 7 or 8 people? I think you need to reread what has been said in this thread, because that is definitely not what we're after.

You know it has been quite the popular thread. In fact people are starting to post more. I'm personally glad to see this. Please keep up the good job guys. Great effort.

That makes two of us. I'm very pleased to see things are brightening up. I'm also happy to know people still visit even though its not always visible to others.

Interestingly that its starting to look eliteist - maybe I should stop posting. I am the biggest supporter of Beginners - my GLXtreem articles were aimed at beginners - where other than my web page will you find more complete source for games?

I agree we're not elitist here.

I think the term elitist is been understand incorrectly.
You are absolutely right about your articles, cairnswm. And I don't think its the articles that are the problem. It's our posting. For quite some time now, posts appear to focus around Jedi-SDL, Lazarus or FPC.
While that isn't a problem to itself, as its a proper topic for a community like PGD, I do sense two problems are coming from it.

A) New members may think we don't do Delphi (anymore), or that it is of less interest to us.
B) Members, not that interested in the topics mentioned above are less inclined to post in those topics.

Add these to the fact that we appear to be very reserved when it comes to new threads (save newsposts) and you have I think in a nutshell our situation.

[lief]

You mean you want a community of just 7 or 8 people? I think you need to reread what has been said in this thread, because that is definitely not what we're after.

*rolls eyes* yes mum! i was being cynically sarcastic... reread what has been said, and there seems to be a common vein of support for a well populated active forum on a variety of topics. I am in this Common Vein, I am just not qualified to answer a lot of the more package specific questions.

[Robert Kosek]

Traveller, The Serious.

Who can say you guys don't do Delphi anymore? I mean, most posts discuss it and games don't they? It's the assumption that, unless we specify our compiler, it's Delphi... as that's what it usually is.

Lighten up there man!

[Traveler]

i was being cynically sarcastic...

Yeah sorry, but your posts confuse me a lot sometimes. At one time you're writing solid posts, the next you're busy making a joke out of it. Its not always clear to me where the seriousness ends and the joke begins. :?

Traveller, The Serious

Regarding this thread, yes I am.

Who can say you guys don't do Delphi anymore?

I wasn't saying we dont do Delphi anymore, I was saying people may think we dont do Delphi anymore. With that i was actually referring to all the talk about crossplatform development, Lazarus and SDL.

In any case, I was trying to make clear what the problems were, so we could solve those. If you think my conclusions are incorrect, perhaps you can offer some of your own then?

[lief]

traveller: i apologize (seriously), I do have that problem in talking to people as well. I am a serious person with a strange sense of humor. I appreciate that this is a problem that you are concerned about. I have offered my thoughts, and suggested solutions, and aside from reiterating those, it is my time to just read the rest of the thread.

wasn't saying we dont do Delphi anymore, I was saying people may think we dont do Delphi anymore. With that i was actually referring to all the talk about crossplatform development, Lazarus and SDL.

I do agree with this. This is what held me back from posting here for a long time, I thought it was more of a crossplatform / mac (ewww) / linux / free pascal forum.

Traveller, The Serious.

hehe.

[Robert Kosek]

I've not had a single problem with Lief's posts, they're much like mine, so I don't mind. Dead serious one second, and slapstick the next!

Aye, he is indeed "Traveller, the Serious". I think he deserves a custom title for that, no?

What I meant was that: Almost everyone knows of DGDev and DelphiGamer's merge, and as Delphi is the "dominant" compiler, it would be assumed unless otherwise noted that the compiler spoken of was Delphi. (Whew, mouthfull) But seriously, crossplatform compilation is a big issue, though it's not the only one. I just think that if someone is serious and looks at the big picture, they'll not have any misconceptions.

*cough* You seem to have pulled me from my "hidey hole", and back into posting...

[LP]

Actually, I think what you lack on the front page of PGD (news) is direct Delphi-related issues. There're many stuff related to .NET, then FreePascal / cross-platform and so on. I don't know if Delphi + Win32 (not .NET) is still very common (I still think it's great platform which will still continue to exist for many years) but this is surely difficult to see from the front page.

Also, additional suggestion for the site is to create categorized links section for many useful things - something similar to the one on Turbo. Some stuff might not be exactly in Pascal, but could be helpful as reference. For instance, few links about 3D math, some links about graphics effects, something for networking, etc. Right now the links section is more like a set of banners but I think well categorized list could be really helpful for people looking for specific info in particular.