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Comparing U++ and Lazarus (FPC) [message #38794]

Fri, 18 January 2013 21:45

lectus
Messages: 329
Registered: September 2006
Location: Brazil

Senior Member

I don't know if there's already a comparison of them somewhere, but I was evaluating Lazarus just for the sake of curiosity.

Here are a few things I found:

IDE:
- U++ Layout designer is good, but less rich then Lazarus' Forms Designer. You just outline the general GUI format and complete with code. Depends on taste: I find U++ approach less confusing.

- Code Completion: About the same. But U++ code editor in general is more pretty and useful.

- U++ TheIDe docking style is better than Lazarus floating windows.

Language / libraries:
- C++ language can be more complex than Object Pascal. But U++ greatly simplifies this with its library.

- U++ containers are easy to use. I found Lazarus containers somewhat obscure to find and use.

- Pascal language is more verbose than C++ (with U++). If you use C++ STL it's another story.

- Lazarus may seem to have tons of components you can use, but I found that some basic/highly useful stuff are lacking. For example for generating reports in Lazarus you have to install third-party components.
I also searched for networking components and there are a tons of them like Synapse, Indy, LNET, but you still have to go hunting for these stuff, some of them stopped being developed a long time ago or are made for Delphi and don't work with Lazarus.

With U++ both report and networking are there. U++ Report is very flexible too. I build the reports by just concatenating strings then sending to Perform().

With Lazarus reports seem to be tightly integrated with databases. I found it very hard to use it for general purposes.

Multi-platform support:
- Lazarus wins hands down. U++ currently only supports Windows and Linux, with a Mac OS X support getting developed(?). Lazarus/fpc supports a lot of platforms, even Android it seems. But again I found it hard to find instructions for building for other platforms. Information seems to be all over the place.

Final thoughts:
I found U++ to be tiny but useful for all kinds of commercial and hobby applications, while you can still use most C and C++ libraries with it (I never needed it).

Lazarus has a bunch of components in it. It's a good free alternative to Delphi. But you have to hunt down for components when you need to do something slightly more complex. And if the components are written in C++, good luck creating a binding.

[Updated on: Fri, 18 January 2013 21:49]

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