[fpc-pascal] Syntax changes suggestions

[Giuliano Colla]

Il 23/07/2018 18:11, Ryan Joseph ha scritto:

> The spirit of the language is really hard to define in my opinion.

To the contrary, in an Open Source project, it is the easiest thing to 
define.
It is what the core developers deem to be the spirit of the language. 
That's all.

One should never forget what Open Source is: one or more persons, 
because of their personal motivations (fun, technical interest, 
altruism, egoistic desire to appear, whatever) decide to develop some 
software in their free time, without getting any money for that, and to 
share it with whomever is interested.

One should understand that it is *their* toy, not *our* toy.

We may suggest them to include new features, to modify existing ones, 
but to accept or to reject them it is just their choice. You cannot 
force them neither to spend their free time developing something they 
don't like, nor to accept a patch which in their judgement would taint 
their toy. It's as simple as that.

Open Source however provides an easy way out. If they don't like it, but 
you do need it or just want it, you are free to implement whatever you 
like on top of the existing project. Then you may just keep it for your 
personal usage, or share it, giving rise to another OS project. That's 
what Maciej Izak has done with its NewPascal.

If you don't know how to implement it, then you're in a worse situation, 
because you cannot judge the implications of what you request, which 
might require an effort not proportionate to the result, might conflict 
with a lot of other things, etc. etc. You have no other choice than to 
rely on core developers' judgement.

For those reasons I believe that this thread has become too long, and 
that it would be reasonable to end it.

Just my 2 cents.

Giuliano

-- 
Do not do unto others as you would have them do to you.They might have different tastes.