How to reduce FreePascal and Lazarus Exe Size...

[LP]

There's a sticky post I pasted on the FreePascal forum before the Lazarus forum was even opened, and it nicely tells you all you need to do to get minimal executable filesizes.

You could have posted a ]I could tell you people to RTFM instead I'm going to flame you to hell so get ready.[/quote]
I could tell you to STFU, but it's rude.

1. You didn't RTFM

Post the ]2. If you like delphi more, use delphi
3. If you want integrated debugger support, use delphi
4. If you want to help, write patches[/quote]
Now you are the first who actually lets me do what I like instead of arguing about my preferences. :lol:

Unlike with Delphi or Kylix you can actualy try to help and provide enhancments and bugfixes for the compiler itself as well as various libraries.

Also, I can use another free and better compiler instead (not even necesarily for Pascal), which is an option you didn't mention. However, this is not a point of our discussion.

Know that the issue "FPC/Lazarus create too big executables" was discussed thousand times on fpc and lazarus mailing lists.

Sorry, I'm not in the mailing list. Can you share some info on what was the resolution?

Whining about big filesizes or whatever other useless and completly irrelevant little itch you got right now is only going to keep people who actualy DO something from doing it.

+

I agree that it is an important knowledge to know how to make small exe size (so I'm not flaming everyone interested in this topic...). But it's not a *crucial thing*.

When you participate in 64k or even 4k contest, the size is *extremely crucial* and *very significative*. If you consider a "generated application size" discussion a "whining", then we should talk again in few years, after you are an adult.

When someone chooses one programming language over the other, or one proprietary-closed-source-Windows-only IDE over open-source portable IDE, and as a main reason gives that "the resulting exe size was too big" --- well, that's just not a good reason.

Ok, then what is a good reason for you? (Are you aware that reasons are specific to particular people/companies?)

Let's face it: 2 MB filesize is not terribly bad.

IMHO, 2 MB for a simple application is *extremely bad*. No matter if its on Linux, Windows, Mac OS X or any other platform. Again, that depends on particular needs of each person/company.

In summary, I just tried to explain why many FPC/Lazarus people find it very irritating when Delphi people ask over and over about "why executables are so large".

Maybe we should put a warning notice to this thread: "Warning! If you are sensitive to stress or mentally unstable, don't read the thread".

If you get irritated by a simple discussion which occured several times in the past, then what will happen if you will have to give a technical support and explain thousand times how to "alpha-blend" image on the screen? (happened to me and I never considered it "whining" or lost my nerve when answering these questions).

If you have a certain sensibility to these questions, then avoid these [size=18px]evil threads[/size] at all cost!