[fpc-pascal] Does FPC 2.8.0 can actually still be called Pascal ?

[dev.dliw at gmail.com]

Hi,
first of all: no matter what - stay with 'Free Pascal' - I don't think there 
would be any advantage renaming a project - except for the whole project 
loosing its identity.
My experience is that most people don't even know Pascal - I wouldn't say 
Pascal as a language has a bad reputation.
[Every time a program crashes with segfault or similar, I wish it had been 
written in Pascal... :) ]

> But the syntax is Pascal-ish, case did not changed, only expanded, and
> it actually have a good use.
+1 from my side, too.

I wouldn't see it as closely. Only dead languages are static - there is no 
good reason to hinder well thought out features to be added, as long as they 
support the IMO most important two goals of Pascal:
readability, and type safety.

BUT: the sheer amount mustn't be decisive - feature bloat can have very 
negative effects...

Optimisation is a topic which really needs to be discussed - maybe when fpc 
reaches a (temporary) state of temporary 'feature completeness'.
[lets 2.X be the feature version, 3.X the optimised version :D ]
Especially for mobile targets well optimised / efficient programs have great 
advantage, but the problem mostly is not speed, but energy consumption.
[Btw. big thanks for merging the android branch +100]

Nice to hear, that the option to 'detach' from Delphi is considered here as 
well, as I'm sure there will be no other option sooner or later...

Last OT:
>I wouldn't mind the hell not freezing over [...]
Nice...
It's pretty damn cold in this area (almost at my front door) for this time of 
the year, so that's really a valid wish... :)

Regards,
d.l.i.w