"Lazarus uses the powerful Free Pascal Compiler (FPC), which
understands Object Pascal (a descendant of Pascal). Free Pascal
(aka, FPK Pascal) is a 32- and 64-bit professional Object Pascal
compiler. It is available for the following operating systems:
Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X/Darwin, DOS, Win32, Win64, WinCE, OS/2,
Netware (libc and classic) and MorphOS, and for different
processors: Intel x86, AMD64/x86_64, PowerPC, PowerPC64, SPARC and
ARM. You can find binaries, packages and daily snapshots at the
Free Pascal and Lazarus Web sites (see Resources). Free Pascal
creates native code executables, like C and C++, and uses the GNU
tools and object format, so it can use C libraries directly, and,
of course, C/C++ code can use FPC libraries. The speed and size of
the created code is comparable to GCC.
"FPC also compiles fast—normally more than 10,000 lines of
code per second. That is because in Object Pascal, forward
declarations are more limited than in C/C++. This saves a lot of
time, even for small programs, and allows you to be more
productive. After a while, you'll compile without thinking, just to
highlight even obvious errors."
