gettings started with freepascal on osx and ios

[noeska]

What is the best way to get started on developing application for osx and the ios platform?

Looking at the freepascal wiki ios not complete yet but the 2.5.1 of freepascal seems to be recomended. Also there seems to be a Lazarus add in.

For my current ios development i use xcode with objective c. Sometimes i like it and sometimes a feel a bit lost :-) I rather would like to use the pascal language.

The lazarus download/build for osx seems to be quite old 2009. But so are almost all lazarus builds with an exception for the linux build that has a 2010 timestamp.

Also on the site here i read about the pascal gladiator being a pascal ide for osx.

And also here on site i see Delphi Prism being used. But i fear that needs some additional third party products. (mono touch etc)

So now i feel lost with all these choices. What are your experiences?

[Andru]

What are your experiences?

My experience is developing in Linux for MacOS X using Carbon API, and testing/compiling/fixing code in VirtualBox with MacOS X 10.6.x(some time ago I used hackintosh 10.4.8, just for look what is it) Also my code was tested with MacOS X 10.5.x in VMWare and with a lot of real Mac's, which were used by Big Fish Games. But when I done all system stuff, I start use MacOS X only for compilation new demos.

About developing for iOS and MacOS X via Cocoa, I think this is little bit tricky for now... I just remember this link, first my reaction was "Oh My Gosh!" O_O

[WILL]

Well to develop for iOS you'll need a Mac. The best way will probably be to sign up for free to become a basic Apple Developer and get Xcode. Download the latest version of FPC and install the templates that come with it for Xcode. There is one specifically for iOS and you will need this to start a new iPad or iPhone game project. It starts out like a little OpenGL demo you can compile and run.

You can also use Delphi Prism via Mono to get your apps working on iOS, but I'm not too sure of the process. I know there are controls that are web-based.

Unfortuantely Lazarus isn't much help on Mac OS X right now as it is having trouble with the GDB debugger it uses. You can run it, write code with it, and even compile with it and all that good stuff, but try to 'run' it so as to use the debugger and your done. It crashes like you wouldn't believe.

[noeska]

About developing for iOS and MacOS X via Cocoa, I think this is little bit tricky for now... I just remember this link, first my reaction was "Oh My Gosh!" O_O

Hmm i dowloaded the installer there and got the following error:

make -C compiler install
make -C utils install
make[4]: Nothing to be done for `install'.
/usr/bin/install -m 755 -d /usr/local/lib/fpc/2.5.1
/usr/bin/install -c -m 755 ppcross386 /usr/local/lib/fpc/2.5.1/ppcross386
install: ppcross386: No such file or directory

[noeska]

Well to develop for iOS you'll need a Mac. The best way will probably be to sign up for free to become a basic Apple Developer and get Xcode. Download the latest version of FPC and install the templates that come with it for Xcode. There is one specifically for iOS and you will need this to start a new iPad or iPhone game project. It starts out like a little OpenGL demo you can compile and run.

I already am a registered apple developer :-) Even ran my first in objective c written app on my ipad.

I now have fpc2.4.2 installed. But not the xcode plugin. I have not yet installed these as i am not sure if i should use the 2.5.x fpc for iphone development, reading on the fpc wiki is stated that only 2.5.x does accelerated floating point and needs a different xcode plugin.

But i think with your remarks in mind lazarus and delphi prism are exit.