Should we have a new forum category for AI related coding? lazarus / 34-Windows ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thaddy · 2026-04-03 04:46 Should we have a new forum category for AI related coding? Many of us already use AI assisted coding and it would be great if we could post in a separate category for that instead of AI subjects popping up all over the other categories. The use of AI tools (Copilot‑style, Deepseek, Claude et.al. assistants, LLMs, code generators, etc.) has grown rapidly, and FreePascal developers are already using them in practice — whether for boilerplate generation, documentation, refactoring, or exploring unfamiliar parts of the RTL and compiler. This isn’t a trend that will disappear, and the forum will benefit from acknowledging it explicitly. A dedicated category is not about hiding AI usage. It’s about managing it responsibly and keeping the rest of the forum clean and technically focused. It can also help in keeping us aware of both technical integrity and attribution to who or what wrote our code: transparency. Some of the above wording is - fittingly - helped by AI  , in this case Copilot.  (which is good for, amongst other things, writing and correcting texts) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thaddy · 2026-04-03 05:11 Copilot also came up with this, which is great, because our community has - at least - two professional grade engines written in FreePascal: Dr. João Schuler’s LLM engine A full large‑language‑model implementation written entirely in FreePascal, including tokenizer, training routines, and inference logic. It demonstrates that modern ML architectures can be built natively in Pascal without external runtimes. BeRo’s LLM engine A highly optimized, low‑level FreePascal implementation with custom math routines and SIMD‑aware code paths, focused on raw performance and tight control over memory and CPU behavior. Both of them highly rated in technical prowess. I might add, that apart from being a great piece of code, schuler's engine may help the curious programmer in understanding what such an engine is all about and how it works, certainly not a toy and on par with the industry. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 440bx · 2026-04-03 05:33 Quote from: Thaddy on April 03, 2026, 06:46:23 amShould we have a new forum category for AI related coding? As I mentioned in another thread, I am in favor of creating a new forum category explicitly for A.I related topics. I believe all forum users could benefit from A.I related/focused discussions. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ccrause · 2026-04-03 05:40 +1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dbannon · 2026-04-03 06:12 yep, me too ! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cdbc · 2026-04-03 07:03 Hi Count me in too  Don't wanna miss out on some fun  Regards Benny ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Dzandaa · 2026-04-03 08:12 Hi, I'm against using AI for For anything? Soon, there won't be any real programmers left, and brains will become increasingly dependent on generative AI. That's just my opinion. B-> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Wallaby · 2026-04-03 09:09 Weren't the brains already dependent on Google, StackOverlflow (RIP), etc? :-D This is evolultion I'd say, same as the step from assembly to high- level languages, with a similar pattern => something new allows you reach the same goal, but faster. And no need to manage CPU registers or remember machine code anymore, apart for the chosen few. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 440bx · 2026-04-03 09:20 Quote from: retrofoxed on April 03, 2026, 11:09:08 amWeren't the brains already dependent on Google, StackOverlflow (RIP), etc? :-D Why (RIP) after StackOverflow ? ... it doesn't look dead... am I missing something ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Martin_fr · 2026-04-03 09:40 Thanks for the suggestion. This is currently being reviewed. In general, on this topic, post relating to AI should have some info/help/qualification. Just stating "AI is great" or "AI is useless" does not fall into this category. Similar, context-less "We will all be out of work" or "we will all have beautiful now jobs"..... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Wallaby · 2026-04-03 10:18 Quote from: 440bx on April 03, 2026, 11:20:49 amQuote from: retrofoxed on April 03, 2026, 11:09:08 amWeren't the brains already dependent on Google, StackOverlflow (RIP), etc? :-D Why (RIP) after StackOverflow ? ... it doesn't look dead... am I missing something ? Its web traffic and number of questions asked and responded are more than 90% down since the peak. In other words, almost no one is using it anymore - I guess there is no point in posting something and being criticised for how you asked it. Rather one could simply ask an AI and get a similar quality answer right away, no matter how dumb the question was. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 440bx · 2026-04-03 10:33 Quote from: Martin_fr on April 03, 2026, 11:40:52 amJust stating "AI is great" or "AI is useless" does not fall into this category. Similar, context-less "We will all be out of work" or "we will all have beautiful now jobs"..... Yes, definitely.  The practical usefulness of such comments likely falls at the low end of the Kelvin scale. Quote from: Martin_fr on April 03, 2026, 11:40:52 amIn general, on this topic, post relating to AI should have some info/help/qualification. My experience with A.I is extremely limited, I've never used it for anything that is anything beyond what I consider very simple (usually just porting simple C programs to Pascal) but, from the little bit I've studied so far, I think that one of the "tricks" in using it effectively is knowing which tasks A.I will likely do well and which ones it won't.   This knowledge is honed with experience, therefore, I'd suggest some forum area where someone considering a project of some kind, gives a reasonable description of the project (not too long, not too short) and people who have experience using A.I can make recommendations as to which parts of the project to give to A.I and how to "deliver" it to A.I (properly word/describe the tasks), as this can make quite a difference in the performance of the A.I model.  Also, the breaking of the project into pieces that are "A.I friendly" may also be a bit of an art experienced people may be helpful in. Folks with more experience can very likely offer additional suggestions that may prove very useful. Strangely, I've found that asking those questions to the model itself is quite enlightening but, I would still welcome human experience in the area. Quote from: retrofoxed on April 03, 2026, 12:18:44 pmIts web traffic and number of questions asked and responded are more than 90% down since the peak. In other words, almost no one is using it anymore - I guess there is no point in posting something and being criticised for how you asked it. Rather one could simply ask an AI and get a similar quality answer right away, no matter how dumb the question was. I get your point.  I know exactly what you mean, I stopped using StackOverflow a few years back because I was in no mood to tolerate the attitude of some of the participants.  That said, I have to also mention that there are people there whose knowledge I found impressive and, additionally, have a good attitude. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Martin_fr · 2026-04-03 11:17 MODERATION: The question if Stackoverflow is alive is vastly off topic to the board. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 440bx · 2026-04-03 11:42 Quote from: Martin_fr on April 03, 2026, 01:17:14 pmMODERATION: The question if Stackoverflow is alive is vastly off topic to the board. Yes, it is.  It was strictly curiosity and I have no intention of eliciting further elaboration. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dbannon · 2026-04-03 11:43 Quote from: Martin_fr on April 03, 2026, 11:40:52 amIn general, on this topic, post relating to AI should have some info/help/qualification. Just stating "AI is great" or "AI is useless" does not fall into this category. Similar, context-less "We will all be out of work" or "we will all have beautiful now jobs"..... I would expect acceptable posts would need to connect AI to FPC/Lazarus, how to use it, get the best out of it etc. I would not want to see more "Its a [good | bad] thing" in and of itself. But hints about which services or techniques serve us better etc would be useful. (And I am, very much, a fence sitter wrt it for me. That is irrelevant !) Davo ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thaddy · 2026-04-03 12:11 It is certainly not about good bad or job stealing issues. What it should be is focus on its use and sharing successes, failures and pitfalls. The average user is still learning what is does, how it does it and what it can't do. It won't go away and it is better to collect useful experiences in a focused category. Building an informal reference source like the forum already is. "It" meaning use and discussion about anything applicable to the term A.I. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 440bx · 2026-04-03 12:42 Unlike the traditional tools that have a very well defined command structure to get something done, A.I is quite different, the interaction is done with human language (instead of pre-designed syntactic commands), this means that, communicating with it is more akin to communicating with a human being. The quality of a description given to a human being will very often determine the result of the interaction and, that is also true in the case of A.I but, since A.I isn't a human being, it may require the description to be a little different for a number of reasons since, unlike a human being it often cannot correctly infer what the programmer wants just by context.  Being explicit is a good idea and it pays off in more ways than one. I believe that alone justifies having an A.I category, for users to share their "communication techniques", what has worked and not worked in the past.  Learn from everyone's past experience. I've learned that much so far   ETA: In case someone may be interested, Anthrop\c, authors of Claude, has a series of courses to get the most out of A.I.  I've been listening to them and they are very easy to follow and I've found them very useful so far (still have a few to go through though), for anyone interested, visit: https://anthropic.skilljar.com/ HTH. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thaddy · 2026-04-03 12:50 What you can also learn to some extend and in the current state of the models, is that it is often immediately obvious to see code and see if "who" wrote it or "what" wrote it: they seem to have some kind of "character" that is quite different from human coding style. To the line. (I am afraid that will go away, though) The difference between you, me, Claude and DeepSeek is often clearly visible. Hence I give attributions to ...., not only to avoid being caught out, but more in general keep a moral standard in coding. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Joanna · 2026-04-03 14:06 Why not just suggest shutting down the forum and everyone use AI since it’s so great? Or maybe make everyone who doesn’t want to use an AI crutch not want to come here anymore? I often can’t even read this forum because it’s being scrapped by bots  on behalf of ai companies. When I do manage to get here I get treated to thread after thread about Quoteno need to write your own code anymore we have AI to do it for us now!! rubbish. The only thing worse than being ddosed by the scraping bots is seeing forum members join forces with the companies that sent the bots to wreck the forums. Aren’t there forums somewhere else for AI enthusiasts? Where did the people who like to program their own code in pascal go to? I don’t even understand why constantly pushing using some 3rd party program to write your code for you isn’t forbidden on a forum that is supposedly about  programming and getting better at programming. This is shameful! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Martin_fr · 2026-04-03 16:17 REMOVED posts containing "personal fight". Please don't. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Martin_fr · 2026-04-03 16:22 Quote from: Joanna on April 03, 2026, 04:06:44 pmWhy not just suggest shutting down the forum and everyone use AI since it’s so great? Or maybe make everyone who doesn’t want to use an AI crutch not want to come here anymore? Because this is about wanting or not wanting an AI board, I let this thread stand (even in its verbosity). Otherwise, this is not a post discussing any aspect of AI that would be in the context of this forum. Anyone else, wanting to express that they rather would not have an AI forum, please elaborate less verbose. (If need is at all, since AI posts are already allowed if they are in the context of Pascal development) And unless anyone wants to discuss why we allow Databases + Pascal => then there is no point of discussing the permission on AI + Pascal. Thanks for considering this. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Curt Carpenter · 2026-04-03 18:42 I don't have an opinion about the need for a category, but have found the occasional AI-related thread here interesting and educational, and would like to see more of them.  Meanwhile, from The Atlantic:  "... Anthropic says that as much as 90 percent of the company’s code is already written by Claude." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 440bx · 2026-04-03 19:34 Quote from: Curt Carpenter on April 03, 2026, 08:42:29 pm...have found the occasional AI-related thread here interesting and educational, and would like to see more of them.  I fully relate to that. I would very much like the author (retrofoxed) of this comment to elaborate (provide details): QuoteI found myself using Claude Code these days more than the Lazarus IDE itself. That statement sure peeked my curiosity. I haven't asked @retrofoxed to elaborate because the elaboration would be off topic but, if there was an A.I forum, that would definitely be among my top requests, to elaborate that statement.  I have no doubt there are useful experiences to draw from. For "completeness", the statement is found at: https://forum.lazarus.f reepascal.org/index.php/topic,72587.msg568495.html#msg568495 Note: I'm not asking for elaboration here since that would be off topic, just giving an example of why a section for A.I would be useful. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Martin_fr · 2026-04-03 19:51 Quote from: 440bx on April 03, 2026, 09:34:42 pmI would very much like the author (retrofoxed) of this comment to elaborate (provide details): QuoteI found myself using Claude Code these days more than the Lazarus IDE itself. That statement sure peeked my curiosity. I haven't asked @retrofoxed to elaborate because the elaboration would be off topic but, if there was an A.I forum, that would definitely be among my top requests, to elaborate that statement.  I have no doubt there are useful experiences to draw from. There are 3 off topics: - the forum - the board - the thread Anything not off topic to the forum can in doubt go to miscellaneous / other. The above possible even programming /general. So long as his statement is (or if unclear is reasonable to be believed) about using Claude to somehow generate Pascal code, or learn about writing Pascal it is most likely on topic. If it goes to unfounded general statements "AI does all for me - no further details" => then it belongs instead on an advertisement board for the company behind the AI. Just seen the remark on his original post. Not sure if that is an error in translation... I.e. "Why does Chatgpt does this" => that we wont explore here. "Does anyone know if and how to get chatgpt to give better results" that we can explore here. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 440bx · 2026-04-03 20:21 Quote from: Martin_fr on April 03, 2026, 09:51:34 pmSo long as his statement is (or if unclear is reasonable to be believed) about using Claude to somehow generate Pascal code, or learn about writing Pascal it is most likely on topic. Could you please clarify, do you mean in the original thread, this thread or the miscellaneous section ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Martin_fr · 2026-04-03 21:05 the requirement that an AI question should have some background on creating Pascal code (and importantly replies in the thread should not veer off that...) => that is for the entire forum. The linked thread, well assuming his question was "does someone know how to get chatgpt to create proper lfm" rather than "why does it not", then its not offtopic as far as the forum goes. As for the board, probably more miscellaneous/other than programming/general. Because its less about the generated program than how to get it from the AI. (but then no one moved it yet) We are still evaluating where the lines will best be drawn. This isn't about cutting AI off the Pascal world.  But AI threads are a topic that shows a high rate of veering very off topic. If we don't set limits early, then when it goes wrong, it goes way wrong and no one wants to clean it up, and we are left with just killing off entire threads. Not what we want. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Martin_fr · 2026-04-03 21:09 Quote from: 440bx on April 03, 2026, 09:34:42 pmQuote from: Curt Carpenter on April 03, 2026, 08:42:29 pm...have found the occasional AI-related thread here interesting and educational, and would like to see more of them.  I fully relate to that. I would very much like the author (retrofoxed) of this comment to elaborate (provide details): QuoteNote: I'm not asking for elaboration here since that would be off topic, just giving an example of why a section for A.I would be useful. Since you ask on a reply, it be a new topic anyway => so put it in miscellaneous for the time, and on the original post, add a @retrofoxed asking him if he could reply there. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 440bx · 2026-04-03 21:28 Quote from: Martin_fr on April 03, 2026, 11:09:05 pmSince you ask on a reply, it be a new topic anyway => so put it in miscellaneous for the time, and on the original post, add a @retrofoxed asking him if he could reply there. Great, that's clear and useful   thank you Martin. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Joanna · 2026-04-03 23:01 Quote And unless anyone wants to discuss why we allow Databases + Pascal => then there is no point of discussing the permission on AI + Pascal. Yes I would like to discuss this … Databases are necessary for pascal programs to easily store information in a tabulated way. Using them literally  requires people to learn more  about programming by using another language sql. Replacing programming with ai prompts is quite the opposite it encourages people to do less coding and rely upon whatever code the AI has managed to plagiarize. I think that people who still want to create all their own code and those that have been seduced by AI should part ways due to irreconcilable differences. https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/226350/using-genai-for- phd-research-productivity-vs-enjoyment/226359#226359 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 440bx · 2026-04-03 23:36 Joanna, you are really missing the point of A.I. A.I isn't about coding less, actually it is about coding more.  There are at least 3 projects that I reluctantly gave up developing because I figured I wouldn't live long enough to finish them.  Now, with A.I, I am reconsidering their development and, that's because with the help of A.I, the increase in productivity can range from 10x to 100x. Just in the process of following the Anthrop/c courses, I've given Claude some situations to analyze and, in a matter of 30 minutes, I accomplished what would have easily taken a week and possibly more and, that's just in the learning process. Also, the breadth and depth of knowledge it has demonstrated is impressive and, I assure you, I am not easy to impress. A.I is just a tool and, having a forum where better and, more efficient ways of using the tool is openly discussed is a definite plus, just like having a forum to discuss how to get the most out of Lazarus and its many features, is. A forum that is geared to A.I + Pascal + Lazarus has the potential to be really great stuff.  Open your mind, give intelligence a chance (real and artificial ones.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Wallaby · 2026-04-03 23:54 The way I see it, it’s fairly straightforward. If you’re pro-AI, you’re free to embrace it — the productivity gains are undeniable. If you’re not, that’s fine too. If you genuinely enjoy coding in the traditional way, no one is forcing you to change. It’s similar to long-standing debates like Windows vs Linux or iOS vs Android — largely a matter of preference. Personally, after 25 years of coding, I’m ready for something different. AI allows me to focus more on architecture and higher-level thinking, which I find refreshing. That said, I recognise I’m in a fortunate position running my own software business, where I have that flexibility. For those working as programmers, though, choosing not to learn or use AI may carry real risks. Developers who can effectively use these tools are significantly more productive, and that difference is likely to matter when it comes to staying competitive in the job market. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 440bx · 2026-04-04 00:49 Quote from: Martin_fr on April 03, 2026, 11:40:52 amThanks for the suggestion. This is currently being reviewed. Nice to know the suggestion is being considered. Can a time frame and/or reasonable guess for a decision be had at this time ? Thank you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 440bx · 2026-04-04 00:51 @Thaddy, Just a thought, maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to add a poll to this thread to get the "yes", "no", "I don't care" counts for the new forum section. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Joanna · 2026-04-04 00:52 It’s not my place to tell people what hobbies they should have… So your hobby has changed from pascal programmer to someone who plays with AI on the topic of pascal. This is called vibe coding I believe. Congratulations you can now tell people who ask questions about pascal to go use AI like you do. If people don’t even care about their own projects enough to code them themselves why have a pascal programmers forum at all ? Let’s just turn over the forums to the scraping bots from AI companies and then use the AI companies plagarized code spoon fed back to us.  It sounds like a plan. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- paweld · 2026-04-04 08:05 I believe such a section should be created because there is growing interest in this topic in conjunction with FPC/Lazarus. Tools are also being developed to facilitate direct collaboration with Lazarus: https://lists.lazarus-ide.org/pipermail/lazarus/2026-March/241633.html An additional benefit will be that people who find such topics disruptive will be able to block them on the forum ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jwdietrich · 2026-04-04 09:23 Although I am not very enthusiastic about vibe-coding and other AI- derived coding methods, I think that the topic is already there and of growing importance. Therefore, I support the creation of a subforum for AI-based coding. We should, however, make a distinction to avoid confusion: We should have two subforums, one for AI-based coding and a second one for the development of AI solutions with Free Pascal. There are already projects addressing this latter topic, see https://sourceforge.net/projects/cai/, https://github.com/joaopauloschuler/neural-api/ and https://github.com/joaopauloschuler/k-neural-api. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Joanna · 2026-04-04 13:21 As much as I like the idea of segregating people who like AI to a separate sub forum and never hearing from them again I’m concerned about the dwindling number of pascal programmers in general and eventually all programming questions answered with AI slop if they are answered at all.  It will be the mental equivalent of  a  flabby 300 lb person who has discovered that driving a car is easier than walking. I’m very disappointed that anyone would think that  outsourcing any type of thought process especially software development to a AI owned by  unscrupulous companies who ddos our forum with their scraping bots is a good idea. Why is it ok to encourage pascal programmers to be antisocial and talk to machines  and utilize only what the machines decide should be provided but not encourage them to be sociable and talk to each other for inspiration? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Martin_fr · 2026-04-04 14:41 The board is now available. Please read the guidelines. In order to keep a balance, and also allow us to maintain the forum with the available manpower, we need to have some distinction/limit as to - What is fitting for this as a Pascal forum - What is not fitting