Pascal Compiler Platform Support Guide

[WILL]

Nice work ! Some comments:

For OS type:
- What "Unix" is supposed to mean ? There are various Unixes, and you mentioned many of them in separate rows anyway... For something like "Unix = support under all existing Unixes" I don't think that any compiler (including FPC and GPC) will fully qualify, since "all Unixes" includes a lot of (nearly) dead Unix dialects that noone cares about...

Well I meant THE UNIX. But it seems that the original Unix is no longer with us. :? So I'll have to break this down further to include all the 'currently used' ones I guess. [size=9px](Though it does appear as if to commercial spin-offs --created by HP, IBM, OSC, etc-- sort of continue the original UNIX lineage... whats the story behind them?)[/size]

- As for Lazarus+BeOS, you probably wanted to write there "Removed" too --- if FPC doesn't support BeOS any longer, then Lazarus will not too.

Ok, somehow missed that one.

Just a small note on Laz vs. FPC: What I consider as a main difference between FPC and Lazarus in this guide is that Lazarus is not just a packaging of FPC, but is the IDE, LCL and packaged components too. So in the case of say, GBA; until Laz adds GBA as an option in the IDE, I can't assume that it as Lazarus, supports it directly. However, I think it is possible and would be accurate to put partial support though.

- As for "FreeBSD" : FreePascal and Lazarus deserve a simple "X" there. Not "/" or "?" --- there's no reason to consider FreeBSD "partial", FPC works there since a long time and Lazarus too (from the point of view of Lazarus, differences between FreeBSD and e.g. Linux are very minor).

But is it 'complete' support? Or does it work only partly like WinCE and GBA? FreePascal.org/FPCWiki sites specify FreeBSD as being only partial right now.

GNU Pascal used to work on FreeBSD, it was even in official "ports", but it is no longer there --- see e.g. http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/f...er/022397.html. In principle, GPC probably works under FreeBSD still (there were just packaging issues, that's why the port was removed), but I didn't test GPC since a long time. Of course, in principle GPC works everywhere where GCC works. So I suppose you can write "/" or even "X" at "FreeBSD" + "GNU Pascal" cell (maybe you should place there a footnote or a direct ]http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2003-October/022397.html[/url]).

Could place an 'Obsolete' inside it as it may still hold functionality due to GCC, but not actively updated anymore...

- Further ideas: how about adding information about whether it's free/open- or closed- source ? Something as short as "fully / partially / no" would be nice. Even better would be more detailed info, like:
- FPC: fully open-source, compiler is GPL, library is LGPL.
- GPC: fully open-source, compiler and library are GPL (Disclaimer: I'm not sure about the library part).
- Delphi: completely closed-source.
- Kylix: IDE and compiler are closed-source, although some library sources are GPL.
Etc.

Hmm... ok next update I'll add some of this type of data... Licence, Price, Source, etc...