[fpc-devel]C style

[startx]

Hello 2 all,

first of all: I tried the new FPC version 1.0.4 under DOS, and it is
working fine (and better than previous ones). This is unvaluable for me,
so thanks for the good job.

I have seen some messages about macros and C/C++ features missing in
this compiler; I have my ideas about this. I think that a pascal
compiler should be *pascal* compiler, and not something else. Some
extensions could be welcome if they eliminated some intrinsic limit, but
thinking twice about it. I prefer pascal over C because pascal is:

1) Clean
2) Easy readable
3) Fast (-very- fast)

At this time I don't see any thing missing in fpc (some bugs), and I
don't think that C-style operators are really necessary. I can write
'flags := flags or $5' and I'm happy with it.

On the other hand, macros are bad, because they create an abstraction
layer on top of the program. I know they are useful, but still not
enough to justify them. Everything has good and bad aspects; for
example, what happens when I try to single step a macro? I've never
tried, but I think they screw up things.

And finally... if I wanted C-style operators and powerful macros, I
could use C compilers (there are too many of them). Compiling a linux
kernel takes twice the time needed if the kernel was written in pascal.
May be pascal is not suitable to write a kernel (never tried, but who
knows?)

May be I am in error, but the turbo pascal style is the best I ever see
in programming. Delphi is good too, but there is too much windows in,
and too much support for it.

It is certainly true that I could simply avoid to use macros and C
operators (apart from the fact that supporting them slows down and
brings complexity. Turbo pascal 3 was a good IDE, with editor and
compiler, and was 39K. It simply was a jewel). But a good pascal program
is portable. I ported a lot of code from TP to FPC, without problems;
why? Because that code was true pascal.

Anyway, do the best you think. Thank you.

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