title: Why would a Delphi programmer use Lazarus as the IDE instead of using Delphi's IDE?
body: <p>I've been very happy with the Delphi IDE for programming in Delphi. </p>
  
  <p>But I've heard about the <a href="http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php?PHPSESSID=57d8d7652b6acbce0a69f0d93ae87ee9&amp;page=7" rel="noreferrer">Lazarus</a> programming environment, and I've also heard that some Delphi programmers use it instead of the Delphi IDE.</p>
  
  <p>What are the advantages that Lazarus has over the Delphi IDE, and why would, or should a Delphi programmer switch to it?</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>The answers are leaving me with more questions than I had before. There seems to be some disagreement as to whether Lazarus can or cannot be used as an editor in developing Delphi code. I guess I thought you could leave everything in Delphi and just change IDEs. <a href="http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Lazarus_For_Delphi_Users" rel="noreferrer">The Lazarus for Delphi Users section of the Lazarus Wiki</a> says:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p><strong>The first thing to do when converting
    a Delphi project</strong><br>
    Having opened
    Lazarus, you should go to to Tools and
    then Convert Delphi Project to Lazarus
    Project. This won't do everything for
    you, but nonetheless will take you a
    good deal of the way. Note that the
    Lazarus IDE's conversion tools are
    generally one-way conversions. If you
    need to retain Delphi compatibility so
    you can compile your project with both
    Delphi and Lazarus, consider
    converting your files with the <a href="http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/XDev_Toolkit" rel="noreferrer">XDev
    Toolkit</a> instead.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Because Lazarus is free is not a reason to switch, but does not penalize you in physical $'s for switching. (You will still have to invest your time to convert and learn. Time = $).</p>
  
  <p>My as-much-as-I-understand conclusions from your answers as to why someone might switch from Delphi to Lazarus: obviously it must be providing something that Delphi currently can't. Currently that is multiplatform support and possibly 64-bit support.  Delphi did have Kylix at one time, but not Mac support. </p>
  
  <p>But with both of those and 64-bit promised soon by Embarcadero, you've answered my question by telling me there's no reason (at least for me) to switch.</p>