[fpc-devel] space char inside identifier's name

[Bisma Jayadi]

> That is wrong. If the possibility exists, it will be used (at least in
> some cases by some people). In many cases this code will have to be
> maintained by different people too. There will be guys which can't stand
> this kind of identifiers but they are forced to use it. So this
> "feature" renders to a limitation of freedom and productivity of
> programmers.

I believe the possibility does always exist, since some language does allow it. 
But not in very much demanded though.

> The proposed idea has big drawbacks:
>  - code gets unreadable and unmaintainable (eye-ball search for mating
>    '"' chars, finding seperations between identifiers)
>  - the linker doesn't support special chars inside variable names so
>    automatic name manging would be necessary
>  - people are stimulated to use identifiers in their natural language
>    instead of short and pregnant keywords
>  - somebody could have the idea to demand Unicode characters inside
>    identifiers, cooperative software development (as widely exercised in
>    Open Source and Free Software development) across different countries
>    and languages comes to a stagnation due to lack of available
>    characters on the programmer's keyboards (or could you write German
>    äöüÄÖÜß, or even Russian cyrillic letters without painful tricks?)
>  - create heavy incompatibilities with Delphi, Turbo Pascal, ...

Very good reasonable points! I never think about these drawbacks before, 
especially about the incompatibility issue. Compatibility is one point I like 
from FPC so I still able to compile my codes in other pascal compilers. :) I 
agree with you, my suggestion has lots more disadvantages than the advantages.

Thank you. :)

 >  - and finally, a personal argument: The professional programming
 >    language Pascal is shifted towards kiddies and wannabe programmers
 >    and I personally want to prevent that FreePascal resembles Visual
 >    Basic or other language for blowhards.

I don't agree with this. But I don't need to discuss more about this since it'd 
be out of the topic. :)

-Bee-

has Bee.ography at
http://beeography.wordpress.com