Total Commander

TC 8 (64 bit) has been developed using Lazarus. Now a new Delphi version has been released that supports 64 bit. What do you think is the best way to continue TC development?
Author statements are welcome

I wonder what the various opininons will be based on.

Roman

Maybe Delphi x64 is a better choice than Lazarus but it will take a lot of time to port project from Lazarus to Delphi x64... So I prefer to leave it as is and get new features in TC instead of another longstanding porting.

Anyway I would prefer Delphi 2 for 32-bit TC because of minimal size.

One reason to use either Lazarus (option 1) or the new Delphi version (option 2) would be effort. This would mean having a single source to maintain which saves a lot of time - which could be used for further improvement of the software.

Looking at the bug reports Lazarus seems to have quite some issues. And it's not really clear how much effort it would be to go with new Delphi version.

Although a larger executable size isn't nice in the long run it's not really an issue nowadays. It would be interesting to know how large a version compiled with new Delphi version would be.

Wouldn't it be a lot easier to port the current Delphi 32 version to Delphi 64, than it must have been porting it to Lazarus 64?

If it is a matter of a couple of month, I could easily wait for a Delphi 64 version.

Lazarus is being actively developed, so I guess that even with its quirks it will be more effective for Christian to stay with Lazarus. Eventually it will pay off - the more people are using Lazarus, the better it gets

Also, Lazarus is free.

this would only matter if TC is open source, but i guess the author is the one who can really vote.

ehab wrote:this would only matter if TC is open source, but i guess the author is the one who can really vote.

I guess you meant "free" and not "open source" - there are closed source, but free applications too. Obviously, neither is the case with TC

Being free, Lazarus opens ways for easy decisions about upgrading to a later version of the development system in the future, whereas with Delphi, Christian would have to pay for the upgrade. Isn't this one of the reasons he stayed for so long with Delphi 2?

TLis wrote:... with Delphi, Christian would have to pay for the upgrade. Isn't this one of the reasons he stayed for so long with Delphi 2?

The main reason is that Delphi 2 provides executable with much less size than later Delphi versions.

OK, I understand, it must have been a decisive factor for quite many years. I think, however, that the issue of the executable size is becoming nowadays less and less significant, isn't it?

For many people size is still significant, e.g. for me. I won't use tool that takes 5 MB if I know that such tool can take 500 kB. Also, bigger filesize -> bigger memory eating.

No one forces you to use the 64-bit version, you can as well continue to use the 32-bit version. The 64-bit bit version is mainly for ignorant people who think that 64-bit is "better", and for some very specific usage cases (e.g. only 64-bit extension available, or 64-bit Windows PE with no 32-bit support).

…and for those who does not want to deal with file system and registry redirection, with missing and/or placed into really slow X64 submenu shell extensions, etc. To me, this is the most significant advantage of the 64-bit TC, and not its "64-bitness" in itself.

That's a pity, MS chose so idiotic method of making 32- and 64-bit applications live together as placing 64-bit DLLs into system32, and 32-bit DLLs into syswow64, with hiding the real file system from the applications, instead of just making a normal system64 dir (like Linux systems do), so that using a native 64-bit application is the only choice for anyone who wants to navigate FS freely, without always trying to remember what's he seeing now — real FS or some virtual substutite, and without necessity to constantly switching the redirection off (to see real files) and back on (to continue working with plugins and other specific functions).

This thread is not about whether 32 bit or 64 bit TC is better.
It's about the advantages and disadvantages of the used development platform for the author but also for the users.