[fpc-devel] How do I go about volunteering as a "release builder", so that we can get rid of the objectively untrue, misleadingly worded "There is no native compiler available for x86_64 Win64. You have to use a cross-compiler" notice on the FPC website?

Ben Grasset operator97 at gmail.com
Mon Nov 5 05:09:27 CET 2018


I just strongly disagree that there's much merit or reality to the overall
concept people keep floating here that FPC's *actual *user base consists
largely of a magical non-stop stream of 50+ year olds who have randomly
decided out of the blue to "pick up Pascal again" and re-live the whimsical
good old days.

Note that I am certainly *not* "young" myself as another poster suggested,
and I have no issue with people who do take an interest in FPC for reasons
roughly similar to what I described above.

I do however have a huge issue with the perpetuation of the idea that FPC
is *mostly* nothing more than a language for maintaining your mediocre
Delphi 7 DBase apps in or for dragging out your dusty old DOS rig and
tinkering around with for nostalgias sake.

It is of course fully usable for those things, which is great! At the same
time though it's a modern language with modern features that is extremely
well suited for a variety of modern applications that *do not necessarily
resemble *whatever arbitrary idealized vision or memory of Pascal that a
given long-time user may or may not have, which as far as I'm concerned is
also great! Basically I'm saying FPCs notable strength is its ability to
seamlessly handle vastly different programming styles originating at
totally different points in time and switch between them quite trivially.

FPC is capable of much, much, much, more than "Database App Number Eighteen
Million" and "Yet Another Reimplementation Of The Command-Line Snake Game I
Originally Wrote 25 Years Ago", which I think an increasing number of
people are discovering, some who may have used Pascal before, and some who
might be younger and perhaps have not. As far as I'm concerned FPC is good
for *everything, *and I'm just not a fan of insinuations to the contrary.
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