Editing The Perl Lazarus Workshop (section)

== A workshop, not a monolith ==

[[File:FreeAPIGUI.png|thumb|right|340px|alt=A wxPerl graphical application running as a Windows executable|The practical objective of the workshop is not merely a Perl script with a window, but a complete Windows application which users can run without installing the developer's toolchain.]]

The Free Pascal Lazarus IDE provides part of the inspiration for the Perl Lazarus Project because it presents application development as a coherent activity.

A Lazarus programmer can install an environment, create a project, place controls on a form, connect those controls to code, compile the application, and begin distributing the result. Around that process has grown a productive community of component authors, application developers, teachers, consultants, publishers, support providers, and specialist toolmakers.

This is more significant than the presence of any one editor or form designer.

The Lazarus and Free Pascal community demonstrates how a language community can support a practical micro-economy. The compiler may be freely available, but books still require authors. Components require maintainers. Applications require designers, testers, documenters, trainers, and support providers. Businesses and specialist communities still need programmers who understand their particular work.

Shared tools do not abolish human labor. They make new forms of labor possible.

Perl does not presently need to reproduce the entire Lazarus IDE in order to benefit from this example. The tools required for an effective Windows workshop already exist. The immediate need is to arrange them coherently.

The Perl Lazarus Workshop is therefore deliberately plural. One program supplies the Perl environment. Another supplies the graphical library. Another generates the interface code. Another provides a familiar editing shell. Several tools cooperate to construct the executable. Another creates the installer.

This arrangement may initially appear less elegant than a single commercial IDE. It also has advantages.

Each tool can be understood independently. Each may be replaced when a better tool appears. The developer is not entirely dependent upon one vendor, one file format, or one abandoned product. The workflow can improve incrementally without requiring the whole workshop to be rebuilt at once.

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